Australia’s Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, has slammed the incumbent Labor government for its interventionist policies that have hit hard the nation’s gas industry since it came to power last May.

Dutton claimed that while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen publicly say that they’re behind the gas industry, their actions betray their words.

“Labor wants gas gone. Labor’s energy policy, I think, is driven by renewable zealotry. It’s doing everything possible to… frustrate the gas sector,” he said.

“The road to net zero emissions — for Australia, the region and the world — is one we can only travel with gas. But gas remains in the government’s crosshairs.”

Dutton said that the Albanese administration “wants to use the chains and whips of regulation and tax to control and cannibalise the private sector”.

“Nowhere is this more visible than in energy policy and its interference in the gas industry,” he told the APPEA conference in Adelaide on Thursday via a video address.

Dutton called Labor’s initial budget in October “an all-out attack on the gas sector”.

“It ripped up funding for gas exploration. It withdrew financial support for gas infrastructure projects. It allocated almost A$10 million (US$6.7 million) to activists to wage lawfare on gas projects,” he said.

Subsequently, the Labor government in December intervened in the gas market with price fixing — a measure intended to shield Australian customers from price spikes.

“But as we know, power prices continue to go up,” said Dutton.

Fast forward to March, and Labor — supported by the Greens — banned funding for gas infrastructure from its A$15 billion National Reconstruction Fund and that same month the government passed reforms to the Safeguard Mechanism.

“It’s a new carbon tax — let’s call it for what it is — and it’s three times more than the one put forward by [former Labor Prime Minister] Julia Gillard.”

Dutton acknowledged that operators need to balance the commercial viability of projects with Australia’s environmental goals.

“Yet Labor’s new carbon tax will force businesses and industries to meet aggressive emissions reduction targets or pay hefty fines. And for many, by design, this tax will be financially crippling,” he said.

The opposition leader also called out the Treasurer’s recent proposed increase of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, noting that companies already pay 40% tax on offshore oil and gas projects.

“But because the Labor government can’t manage money, it wants to hit you with the hammer of taxation.”

However, he cautioned that the worst is yet to come for the oil and gas industry due to the government’s proposed changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

“The government’s planned Environment Protection Agency will impose new regulations, powered by hundreds of new bureaucrats. Environmental approvals will be harder to obtain, slower to authorise and certainly more expensive. Bureaucrats in this new agency will be delegated powers by the minister to approve or reject projects,” added Dutton.

“In such an agency, the balance will always tip in favour of environmental preferences at the expense of jobs, regional development and economic imperatives.”