The Australian Pipeline Industry Association (APIA) has taken a swipe at the direction and tardiness of the country's energy market reform agenda.
Association Chief Executive Allen Beasley said reforms being handled by the Australian Commonwealth and State Ministerial Council on Energy suffered from policy paralysis on a number of key issues.
Speaking at APIA's annual pipeline industry convention on Queensland's Gold Coast, Beasley said senior bureaucrats had failed to move essential issues forward quickly, had failed to seek a credible and genuine industry consultation in the reform process, and had failed to recognize the primacy of market-based solutions.
Beasley went on to charge that in the past 12 months energy market reform has been characterized by poor-quality consultation drafts followed by months of silence on many of the key issues.
Beasley said the major structural impediment for Australia was the need for additional investment in pipeline infrastructure to connect competing gas sources and to provide alternative transport paths and wider market access for all gas sources.
"The most effective means of addressing the current barriers to gas market trading is to remove barriers to investment and reduce regulatory risk," he said. "This would enable investors to focus on and manage project risk, which is an area that remains a major commercial issue in all new pipeline development activity."
He added that removing the barriers to investment would encourage greater connection and integration of Australia's pipeline system and better access to gas reserves.
In addition, governments need to work with the pipeline industry to ensure greater protection of pipelines against third party damaged. This, Beasley said, is by far the major security issue facing the Australian pipeline industry.