Australia has struck oil, but will we strike good policy?

The news of a massive shale oil strike in the Coober Pedy region of South Australia is very exciting news for Australia’s economic future. The strike is in a remote outback location away from farms. And further good news is that a Brisbane-based company Linc Energy stands to be the major beneficiary.

Oil is the largest commodity industry in the world. Imagine if we could become self-sufficient in oil and no longer had to import it. Imagine all the jobs and wealth it could help create. Imagine if we could set our own oil price based on the availability of the commodity and not have to rely on the international benchmark oil price set by global oil markets.

But news of the massive strike was greeted with understandable cynicism by many members of the public. On internet forums and social media there were tongue-in-cheek comments made along the lines of “now the Americans will probably invade us”. And then the more serious “we’ll only sell it off to America or China”. Or “it won’t make any difference to the fuel price because the government will only tax us more”.

Australians have every right to be cynical. We already have massive natural wealth in this country and for many years our mainstream politicians have often let us down and acted against the national interest. So we can only cross our fingers and hope that we get this right. However, with the dedication of our globalist politicians to the global economy and the amount of foreign influence over our policies, it may be better not to hold our breath.

As it currently stands, shale oil is difficult to extract, and Linc Energy will need the support of a major partner in order to achieve its goals. But nonetheless, it could yet turn out to be an exciting development for Australia.

As much as possible, we need to ensure that this oil find is funded and operated by Australians, for Australians. This windfall should be one that fully benefits Australia, and not just have the profits siphoned off overseas. There is great potential in this discovery and all Australians should benefit from it.

References:
“ Major oil discovery in outback SA”, ABC News, 25 January 2013
“$20 trillion shale oil find surrounding Coober Pedy ‘can fuel Australia’”, Herald Sun, 24 January 2013 (Cameron England, The Advertiser)
“OPEC” [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries], Wikipedia
“Price of petroleum ”,
“Benchmark (crude oil)”, Wikipedia
“What determines fuel prices in Australia?”, The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission