Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

and we have made clear that we will now increase them to $100 million, with the Treasurer to introduce legislation to this House tomorrow.

Under them, we had four major refineries close. When the Leader of the Opposition was the energy minister, we went from six refineries in Australia down to four. Under them we had Australia's fuel reserve sitting in Texas. Under us it sits in Queensland and Victoria. If the coalition had had their way, Australia would have continued to languish, rejecting the electric vehicle revolution. Under us, we've seen EVs go from four per cent to 12 per cent as a share of new vehicle sales. That means fewer Australians are lining up at the bowser and that the fuel is better able to get around existing vehicle owners. They opposed the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, which is seeing more Australians move to more fuel-efficient vehicles, taking pressure off the fuel supply. In their last summer in office, there was twice the amount of gas used in the national electricity market as in the most recent summer.

We've just heard from the shadow Treasurer a whole litany of things which, surprisingly, had nothing to do with the MPI topic that he decided to bring forward. So, given that he decided to stray off the topic, I think it's worth reminding the House of a few of the points that the shadow Treasurer has stood for in the past. Let's face it, if there were a frequent flyer program for unpopular ideas, the shadow Treasurer would have lifetime gold status. He has in the past derided work-from-home arrangements as 'professional apartheid'. He has criticised the Fair Work Commission's decision to deliver a real-wage increase to low-income workers. He has advocated repealing protections for minimum standards for gig economy workers, and he has criticised better wages for frontline workers, aged-care workers and early childhood workers as 'borrowing from future generations'. This is someone who talks about a cost-of-living crisis, but who has opposed every serious measure this government has put in place to raise the wages low- and middle-income Australians.

The shadow Treasurer has universal superannuation a form of economic social engineering and a form of economic insanity, and he has called for the dismantling of universal superannuation. He has railed against paid parental leave, and he has called for the doubling of the GST. When others see social insurance, the shadow Treasurer sees a target list. He has claimed that social housing suffocates the spirit of entrepreneurialism, and said 'our real objective should be not to produce more social housing'. He talks a lot about freedom, but when he talks about freedom what he really means is the freedom from workplace standards, the freedom from progressive taxation, the so-called freedom from public services.

When it comes to some of the pressures that Australians are under in paying their mortgage, it is important to remember the shadow Treasurer's track record on interest rates. On 10 November 2020, he said 'nobody wins from low interest rates'. On 23 October 2019 he said, 'At the beginning of this term I deliberately communicated my concern about the Reserve Bank continuing to cut interest rates.' On 27 February 2018, he said 'we need to create the policy settings to progressively increase interest rates', and went on to say 'money is too cheap'. So when Australians are considering what they're paying on the mortgage, they should remember that this shadow Treasurer is a shadow Treasurer who has championed increasing interest rates. He has invested in a fund which pays off when the Australian economy does badly, and he has said that he wants Australians to be paying higher interest rates.

This Labor government has been very clear about what we are doing in order to deal with the war overseas and the impact that that is having on Australian fuel prices. Our strategy comes in three areas. First, we're coordinating supply. We've put in place a fuel security coordinator, Anthea Harris, who will work with state and territory counterparts in order to coordinate supply and unblock bottlenecks. This builds on work that we have done since coming to office in maintaining sovereign refining capability through the fuel security services payment, investing a billion dollars in low-carbon liquid fuels so our refiners can modernise and make more fuels here, and bringing diesel storage across the country to over 3.7 billion litres with over 90 diesel terminals.

Second, we're releasing fuel from the national fuel stockpile. We've released 20 per cent of those fuel reserves in order to deal with shortages which are being driven by spikes in demand. Let's be very clear: Australia has as much fuel here as we had before bombing started in the Middle East. We are currently holding more than 1.6 billion litres of petrol, more than 800 million litres of jet fuel and more than 2.7 billion litres of diesel. This is a dramatically better position than Australia was in under the former coalition government, when four fuel refineries closed during the Leader of the Opposition's time as energy minister, in which he put our fuel reserves in Texas.

Third, we are cracking down on anticompetitive conduct. We have seen the ACCC announce that they are carrying out an investigation against four major fuel companies. Last month they secured a $16 million fine against Mobil for making false or misleading representations about fuel. The ACCC has called the fuel companies to an urgent meeting to explain their pricing conduct. The ACCC has more resources than ever before and, under the chair of Gina Cass-Gottlieb, has done work to ensure that they are focusing on fuel supply. They are ramping up fuel monitoring, reporting weekly and taking a focus on unusual price spikes, ensuring that motorists are not taken for mugs.

Those three measures—coordinating supply, releasing fuel and cracking down on anticompetitive conduct—see Australia in a dramatically better position to address the challenges that are emanating from the Middle East. Our government has been clear with those parties to the conflict. We have expressed our view to the United States that it is time to wind down this conflict, with the principal objective of reducing the risk of Iran creating a nuclear weapon having been achieved. In this government's view, it is time to bring the conflict to an end. That is in the interests of all countries. We have also been very clear with Iran that its conduct in attacking neighbouring countries is utterly unacceptable, and we have worked with those neighbouring countries, particularly the UAE, where there are 24,000 Australians, in order to provide a Wedgetail aircraft and to work to ensure the safety of people in those regions.

We were not notified of this conflict before it began. We are not a party to this conflict, but it is having a clear impact on Australians. When the global oil price goes up, Australia's fuel prices go up. No Australian government can insulate Australian drivers from the impact of international fuel prices. What we can do is coordinate supply, release fuel from the stockpiles which sit here in Australia and crack down on anticompetitive conduct. What we need to see from those opposite is less posturing and more patriotism, and a commitment to put Australians first, not fearmongering like their friends in One Nation.

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