About bloody time

According to a story in yesterday's Herald, the government is threatening to regulate the gas industry. As someone who works in that industry and has a passing familiarity with the issues in questions, my opinion is that its about bloody time.

Scoop has a speech from the chairman of NGC, which calls the planned regulation "unnecessary" because the industry is making "very significant progress" on regulating itself. This is pure bollocks - the gas industry has spectacularly failed to provide any sort of usable enforcement mechanism for its self-regulation scheme, making it completely toothless. They need a Leviathan, and if they can't provide one themselves, the government should provide it for them.