By Tess Ikonomou in Canberra

Australia is being urged to divert uncontracted gas back to the domestic market to provide households with long-lasting energy bill relief.

Independent senators David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie have lashed Labor’s $150 energy rebates for households as a “band-aid solution”.

They want the federal government to stop exporting so much gas overseas, so households and businesses have access first.

Senator Pocock said Australia didn’t have a gas supply shortage, but a gas export problem with 80 per cent being sent abroad.

“This is a problem that can be solved,” he said on Monday.

“What we haven’t seen is the political will from the major parties who actually say Australians should benefit from Australian gas first before we export.”

Senator Lambie said the nation needed a gas reserve policy of 15 per cent.

“This is not about digging up more gas. This is not about ‘drill, baby drill’. This is about prioritising where our gas goes,” she said.

“The first thing you (government) could be… doing this week, is putting through a gas reserve policy for this country to make energy prices reduced.

“Stop this rubbish of not doing means testing and giving people like me $150 off my electricity bill.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator has tempered warnings about shortfalls as early as this year.

But long-term risks to gas supply remained serious, it said in its latest outlook for the east coast gas market.

Analysis from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found the projected shortfall in domestic gas markets could be met by diverting uncontracted gas.

Australia is Japan’s single-largest provider of energy.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said gas was the only short-term way to put downward pressure on energy prices.

“It’s the only input that you can ramp up, supply quickly,” he told Sky News.

Mark Ogge, from the Australia Institute, said consecutive governments had given away the nation’s gas “for free” to multinationals.

“Big gas are taking the piss, our governments are letting them, and ordinary Australians are paying the price,” he said.

Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie said leaders needed to pull every lever to both bring down energy prices and transition to a clean economy.