Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to make a short contribution now in the debate to take note of the Prime Minister’s statement on energy initiatives and to continue my remarks when parliament resumes in a fortnight’s time. I thought I would take the opportunity to make a short contribution now to reinforce an important point I was making in the House yesterday and to again extend an invitation to the Prime Minister or the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources to answer a very simple question, and one which I have been asking for days, and that is: what is the government’s estimate on the number of motor vehicles which will have access to the government’s LPG grants program?

We have done considerable work on this, using Australian Bureau of Statistics numbers on the number of vehicles in this country, and the level of funding that has been given to the grant over the next eight years. My calculation—and I am very confident my calculation is correct—is that less than three per cent of motor vehicles in this country will have access to this grants scheme. The obvious second question which flows from that is: what is the Prime Minister’s message to the remaining 97-plus per cent of consumers who will not have access to that grants scheme? What was in the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday which is going to bring fuel price relief for them tomorrow, next week, next month or even next year?

These are the simple questions the Prime Minister or his minister must answer. We know they have the number of likely uptakes on LPG; otherwise, they could not have possibly costed this scheme. So I call upon them again to come forward with that number. It is simple. They have it in their drawer; they have it on their computer. Be honest with the Australian people and share that information with them.

This is an energy statement that will somewhat disappoint the Australian people. What we needed from the government in the first instance was a decision to refer to the ACCC the power it requires to properly investigate petrol prices in this country. It is very, very simple. The stroke of a pen would have achieved that. Second, we wanted the government to strengthen the Trade Practices Act to enhance the ACCC’s power to successfully prosecute any retailer or wholesaler of fuel doing the wrong thing by motorists. Third, we needed a proper approach to diversifying fuel consumption in this country and further reducing our reliance on imported oil and, in particular, Middle Eastern oil. We got none of that in this package. We got some hope—some very long term, minor hope—on import dependency. The government picked up some of our proposals on bringing forward investment in exploration of more oil and gas, and we saw a very slight hint that it might be beginning to agree with us on the question of the development of a gas-to-diesel industry in this country, but it was not enough.

So I invite the Prime Minister, now the community has come to a conclusion that there is not anything in this package that is going to bring them any short- to medium-term relief on petrol prices, to come back to the parliament and admit that this was a hurriedly and recklessly cobbled together package that will do nothing in the short to medium term on petrol prices. We invite him to do so. He stole our LPG policy, and we are delighted to say that a LPG policy as a small part of a broader policy would have made a difference. But, by focusing entirely on LPG, he is distorting the market. You are going to have demand outstripping supply on conversions. Conversion prices will go up. You are going to have demand outstripping supply on gas itself and the price of gas is going to go up. That is no way to run a policy. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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