Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

What should be of particular interest to the member for Kennedy is that these three sets of initiatives that we're taking today are on top of a number of fuel security initiatives that we already have in place. For example—and this goes right to the member for Kennedy's question—on 17 September 2025 the energy minister and I, in Brisbane, announced the $1.1 billion Cleaner Fuels Program to kickstart low-carbon liquid fuel production in Australia, which is all about using our know-how here and our resources here to contribute to fuel security. The Cleaner Fuels Program is all about low-carbon liquid fuels, along some of the lines that the member for Kennedy has talked about before.

We've also got the domestic reserves through the minimum stockholding obligation that commenced in July 2023. We're maintaining our domestic refining capability through the fuel security services payment, which again goes directly to the member for Kennedy's question. Remember that we had six refineries at the start of the member for Hume's time as energy minister. We've now got two, but we've taken steps to secure our supply. We're reviewing the relevant legislation. We passed legislation in December to strengthen our response capabilities as well. So this government understands the pressures on fuel security. We've taken a number of steps, including trying to rebuild and build our own local supply capacity and manufacturing capacity when it comes to low-carbon liquid fuels. If other steps are required, obviously we'll consider them in the usual responsible way.

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