Strong reservations

by Alison Reeve, Tony Wood, Hamish McKenzie, Ben Jefferson

06.03.2026 Submission
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Submission to the Gas Market Review

Successive federal governments have intervened sporadically since 2017 to try to increase gas supply and lower prices. The Albanese Government has now decided to undertake structural reform, establishing a gas reservation commencing in 2027.

Download the submission

The government’s stated aim is for the reservation to ‘cater for the domestic shortfalls that are forecast [and] to slightly oversupply the Australian domestic market’. The government has committed to respect existing export contracts, but to require domestic demand to be met first, before any new gas can be exported.

A successful policy should restore the normal function of the gas market by giving certainty to users and producers of gas to invest or divest. It should avoid locking in production and demand that is inconsistent with emissions-reduction targets. It should be simple, easy to understand, fair, and flexible enough to respond to changing circumstances. And it should ensure domestic customers are well supplied, without creating over-reliance on exporters for domestic gas.

In this submission we outline a design that achieves these competing aims within the constraints of the commitments already made.

Alison Reeve
Energy and Climate Change Program Director
Alison Reeve is the Energy and Climate Change Program Director at Grattan Institute. She has two decades of experience in climate change, clean energy policy, and technology, in theprivate, public, academic, and not-for-profit sectors.

Tony Wood
Energy and Climate Change Senior Fellow
Tony is the Energy and Climate Change Senior Fellow at Grattan Institute. He was previously the Program Director, from 2011 to 2025, and before then worked at Origin Energy in senior executive roles for 14 years. From 2009 to 2014 he was also Program Director of Clean Energy Projects at the Clinton Foundation, advising governments in the Asia-Pacific region on effective deployment of large-scale, low-emission energy technologies.

Hamish McKenzie
Energy and Climate Change Deputy Program Director
Hamish McKenzie is the Deputy Program Director of Grattan Institute’s Energy and Climate Change program. With diverse experiences across academia, the electricity sector, and policy, he brings a practical approach to his work at Grattan.

Ben Jefferson
Associate
Ben Jefferson is an Associate in Grattan Institute’s Energy and Climate Change Program. He previously worked at Boston Consulting Group in the Public Sector and Principal Investors and Private Equity practice areas. Prior to that he worked as a tax and welfare policy research assistant at the ANU and in workplace relations policy in Federal Government.