Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was fascinated to listen to the member for Ryan demonstrate to us, in this House, his complete lack of understanding of this government's failure in fuel security and what it has meant for the west of Melbourne. I find it astonishing that we're here today to support a piece of legislation that is, absolutely, long overdue. It is incumbent upon us to remind this House, through this second reading amendment, of the incredibly poor history this government has in this space and that those outcomes and what they mean, in reality, to Australians, including those I represent in the seat of Lalor—the absolute loss of jobs in the west of Melbourne as a direct result of the inaction of this government—are beyond consideration. It is an absolute indictment on this government that they have sat on this necessary move for such a long time.

Let's look at the history of this, because it was not unforeseen. The clouds have been brewing for many years under this government. We have had eight years of this government and a Senate inquiry in 2015—let's just check that. It's 2021, nearly the end of the financial year. A Senate inquiry in 2015—six years ago—recommended that the government undertake a comprehensive review of Australia's fuel security problem. But this year I stood outside the Mobil refinery in Altona, with the member for Gellibrand and the member for Corio, to decry the fact that this government's inaction has caused that facility to stop refining and has cost 350 direct jobs. Lots of those people have lived for a long time in the electorate of Lalor. This was not unforeseen, yet here we are. Despite this government's inaction, we got too little too late. It has meant not just the closure of Mobil in Altona but also the closure in Kwinana.

When this sorry affair began, this time last year, we had four refineries operating in this country and we're now down to two. We have seen the closures of major refineries. Despite that Senate inquiry, it took the government three years, until 2018, to even announce they would do the review, with a due date of late 2019. Fuel security and the job security of thousands of refinery workers, like anything else with this government, gets a call-up only when there's a bad front page. The interim report on liquid fuel security was delivered to the government over two years ago, in April 2019. The government still hasn't released the final report. It was due in 2019. This is a government that has delayed and neglected the basics we need to keep the country running.

Even when there was action taken, the government were in such a desperate state that their failure to act meant that we were not meeting our requirements to have 90 days of domestic fuel stocks. We have got to the point now where we have 58 days. We're still 32 days short of the 90 days required. It's about fuel stocks and our being able to keep this country moving, but it's also about industry and local jobs in my electorate. This government's inaction means that Qenos, operating in Altona, have closed parts of their operation in Victoria, which has cost 150 jobs.

I can't stress this enough. I grew up in the electorate that I serve. I went to school with kids whose dads—it was generally dads at that time—worked at Mobil or at Qenos. They worked in refining and petrochemicals. They were good jobs. They built homes. They fed families. They kept a roof over people's heads. There are some people in my electorate who are the third generation of young people working in the petrochemical industry in the western suburbs of Melbourne. We know today that those people's children will not have those good operator jobs or be engineers in these industries, because of the eight long years and the failures of this government, and those opposite have absolutely ignored that. I had to sit here and listen to the member for Ryan talk about the fabulous jobs in oil refining in Brisbane. He is completely oblivious to the fact that we've just lost hundreds of jobs in Melbourne. We've lost them: engineers, operators, tradesmen and electricians. They are all out of work because of the failure of this government to do its job. It is an absolute shame that we have to stand here today and do this.

We support this legislation and, as the member for McMahon said, we support the notion that the refining industry needed support, but it needed it prior to now. It needed it before Kwinana and Altona closed. We are now left with two refineries in this country. What this government's failure to act on energy means for manufacturing in Victoria is extraordinary. We've got petrochemical industries operating there which, down the chain, so many industries are reliant on, including agriculture, water and road building. Those opposite have left the country at risk. Once those jobs in Melbourne are gone and once the jobs down the pipeline in Melbourne are gone it will mean that we are importing more products into this country when we should be manufacturing products for ourselves. And let's not get started on what the pandemic taught us.

The pandemic taught us very loud and clear that we are in at the end of the global supply chain, so the risks, we're now aware, are much deeper than we might have thought eight years ago. But now we're putting at risk not just our capacity to refine and to create skilled jobs but our capacity to keep other industries going onshore in this country, particularly in Melbourne's west, which has taken hit after hit since this government was elected. There were Toyota and Mobil, and now Qenos is closing parts of its operation in Altona. It's a shameful history. The member for Hume, who supposedly gets this, fails to act. Understanding is one thing, Member for Hume; action is another, and you have been too late to this party. You are too late for Melbourne's west, too late for the families in my electorate who were relying on those jobs, too late for the young people in my electorate who might have aspired to those jobs, too late for the apprentices they might have trained and too late for the supply chains further on to be able to continue to buy Australian products into their manufacturing, which also is further at risk.

I want to go to great pains here because, like the member for Gellibrand, I have met with many of our petrochems locally over the years as a representative here, and there's an important time coming right now. There may be those who think that this fuel security debate has nothing to do with an Australia with a renewables future, but it really isn't that simple. Part of a cleaner economy and a greener world will come when we're at the position where we can undo the chemistry that goes into plastics creation. The experts in this area tell me the world is on the brink of finding that chemical answer. If our petrochem industry isn't here when that happens, we'll have missed another opportunity to be part of the global solution. We'll be shipping plastics offshore again for somebody else to recycle, rather than building that capacity in this country and being part of the solution.

The clock is still ticking for this government in terms of energy security and ensuring that manufacturing can continue in this country. Despite the unedifying position we find ourselves in, where late last year the Prime Minister and the member for Hume were hailing their 'terrific fix' for our fuel security and for refining in this country, we found two refineries closed—all those skills, all those workers, all our capacity—and the creation of a reliance on other countries to provide us with what in manufacturing terms are staples. The government went out and had a photo opp—the Prime Minister, the member for Hume—to say, 'We've fixed it.' Yet we find ourselves here today looking at the legislation that we should have been looking at during the past eight years. Today it is too late for those workers I represent in the electorate of Lalor, it's too late for the families, it's too late for those industries and it's too late for us to rebuild our refining capacity, and it puts us at risk every day.

So, although Labor supports this legislation, we do have to make the point that it was too little, too late and that this legislation should have been here a long time ago. There should be absolutely no surprises for the members of the government, so it is a shock to me to listen to the member for Ryan speak today on this legislation, because it smacks of the absolute lack of understanding of those opposite on the importance of secure, permanent jobs. We are postpandemic, in a situation where recovery is potentially very patchy, and I don't think people opposite understand that either—that for all the good news in some suburbs, there is bad news in others. The 500 jobs lost in the west of Melbourne won't be replaced with permanent, secure, well-paid jobs that would build a home, feed a family, educate a family. That won't be happening.

The loss is felt very deeply in my community, because it's loss upon loss upon loss, and eight long years of a government that has no plans for jobs for Melbourne's west, no plan for secure jobs anywhere, and no plan for manufacturing in this country—absolutely no plan. As the member for McMahon said, we can look to renewable energies, which are linked to the notion of electric vehicles. And we remember the last election campaign, where the Prime Minister decried—and those opposite ran a campaign deriding—the notion that electric vehicles would be coming to Australia and suggested that electric vehicles are somehow an inferior product that won't tow your boat and that will wipe out weekends. This is what's important for those opposite to understand, and for people in the community to understand—because I know that even in my community there are those who say, 'Well, if the refining stops, that's good; we'll all go to electric cars.' That transition will take time. It will take a long time. In most cases, it will probably be those on the least income who will be last to afford the electric vehicle; therefore, those people need price security around the petrol that they're putting in their cars now.

So it isn't an either/or comparison and we are a long way from not requiring petrochemicals. We are a long way in so many areas from being able to create things using clean energy that this is not an either/or scenario and it is important people understand that we still need these industries. I certainly don't want to see the plastics industry only operating out of Sydney, the refining only operating out of Brisbane and Geelong. Because one of the other side effects of Mobil closing in Altona is that there were pipelines there into the petrochemical sites in Altona that will now be relying on truck transport from Geelong. So, for every good thing, there's a bad thing. I reiterate that Labor supports this legislation but we decry the fact that it has taken so long and that this government delivers too little, too late.

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