At its heart, Dan Andrews' permanent ban on fracking in Victoria is easy politics - which doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. Added up from a political, economic and environmental perspective, it makes sense.
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The extended moratorium on onshore "conventional" gas extraction using tried-and-true techniques is murkier given the Premier didn't offer the only obvious argument to support it – that we can't justify, and have no need, for new reserves of energy from fossil fuels.
But even without that, the politics is a no-brainer.
First things first: despite what you will hear, this is not a decision with big near-term economic implications. On a national scale, the onshore gas industry in Victoria has been small and few were banking on it expanding.
Conventional gas – removed from relatively easy-to-access sandstone and limestone – was tapped near Port Campbell between 1986 and 2006, but the state's gas overwhelmingly comes from vast reserves in Bass Strait. Extraction at sea will continue.
Fracking – slang for hydraulic fracturing – is one technique used to access what's known as unconventional gas. It involves pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock at high pressure. The rock fractures and gas (or oil) is forced out.
Coal-seam gas has been highly controversial in Queensland and NSW, but is a non-issue further south – no-one believes there is CSG on a meaningful scale. But the state is likely to have untapped reserves of tight gas (in rock of very low permeability) and shale gas in the Otway and Gippsland basins.
Critics will say a blanket ban on this type of gas development will cost economic development and jobs. This is impossible to prove as no-one knows what's there, but it is likely the resource would be boutique compared with other states.
There will also be accusations that the ban will force up gas prices in the state that uses more of the stuff than any other in the country.
In reality, prices have mainly risen due to the advent of a lucrative export market - households and businesses are competing with overseas buyers - and, according to the consumer watchdog, potentially due to a lack of industry transparency about how much gas is already available. Of course, limiting supply affects prices, but changes in how the industry is run are likely to have a bigger impact in bringing them down.
The politics of stopping gas development is much more straight-forward.
For five years, farmers and activists with Lock the Gate and Friends of the Earth have run a grassroots campaign (the industry would argue a scare campaign) highlighting risks associated with fracking. It's been astonishingly successful - a state parliamentary inquiry into the issue received more submissions than any in recent memory, almost all against.
Conversely, the constituency in favour of gas development is small. A government that accepted what some have advised - a regulated industry, with projects approved on a case-by-case basis - would suffer political pain for uncertain economic gain.
Where the conventional gas moratorium fits into this is less clear. It poses none of the risk associated with fracking, but seems to have been blocked in the name of delivering a simple message about "clean, green" farming.
If the moratorium is to consider what role gas has in climate policy, it's perhaps not surprising Andrews didn't say so.
It would have prompted a much tougher question for his government: what's it going to do about coal?
