I think we are flogging a dead horse by trying to use coal and petrol for our energy and transport. We don't have the oil reserves to make ourselves independent from OPEC and the cost of petrol will only continue to rise year after year. We have plenty of coal for electricity but with a tax on carbon coming and carbon capture being an undeveloped technology, we need to move in another direction. My idea is as follows.

New Infrastructure Development based on our natural gas

As we have copious quantiities of natural gas, why don't we build hundreds of small natural gas fired power plants throughout Australia to generate our electricity? The English are already going to this decentralised power generation method and it is inherently more reliable. It's also 90% cleaner than coal and the gas supply infrastructure is already in place. The construction and maintainance of these power plants would supply more jobs than is presently supplied by the generation of electricity by coal fired furnaces.

Also develop a compressed natural gas car similar to the Honda Civic GX to escape from OPEC.

Instead of cash hand outs, the natural gas and the power it generates could be sold to the Australian people and businesses via the government at a cheap price to lower the cost of living here and to make us more independent from the rest of the world.