Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier today, I did what a lot of us enjoy doing, which is talking to a group of grade 6 students who are visiting Canberra. One young girl, whose family farms out in the Dookie region, which is in the eastern part of my electorate, said: 'The fuel issue is really hitting us because Dad put an order in for diesel three weeks ago, and, without that diesel, he can't sow his crops. We're starting to get worried.' We had a discussion about it, and it occurred to me that this grade 6 student understands the fuel crisis in Australia better than the Minister for Climate Change and Energy.

We are at a point in broadacre farming where farmers are about to sow their crops—I'm sure the member for O'Connor, who's from one of the great cropping regions of this country, will talk about this. They will probably sow with fertilisers called MAP and DAP, and most of them are saying they've got enough of those. They are worried about the supply of diesel. Western Australian farming groups say that they'll probably need about 35 litres of diesel per hectare for the crop cycle—that's sowing, spraying, putting out some urea and then harvesting. They're really worried about where that fuel is going to come from and where the fertiliser is going to come from.

These are people who don't talk in the way that we talk in Canberra, where we say 'we're focused on', 'we're working with', and, 'We're considering options.' These are people who, if they don't work their businesses and judge their businesses on results, go broke. They don't say, 'we're working with'. They don't say, 'we're focused on'. They say: 'If I don't get diesel, I can't put my crop in. If I don't get urea, I won't get the yields to make growing a crop profitable.' They're judging the minister on what they see on the ground. 'Is my delivery of diesel turning up or not? Is there a service station in regional Australia that has got fuel or not?' As we heard today, there are over 400 service stations in regional Australia that do not have fuel. I'm happy that the minister's focused. I'm happy that he's telling us that 'he's working with'. He will have achieved something when those farmers get their delivery of diesel and when those service stations have fuel in the pump. That's when he can claim success, and I look forward to that happening.

This is a real problem for Australian families because I don't think people understand how important the food supply chain is in this country. I've just come from the NFF Horticulture Council, who've told me that the cost and the supply of diesel is affecting their harvest operations of, for example, avocados and bananas and is making those unviable. But, even if you can get the crop off, the diesel that you need to get it to market—some of this stuff is grown in North Queensland and some of it in Western Australia—is not arriving, or it's too expensive.

I understand that there are global supply shocks, but the minister has told us that there is not a supply problem in Australia. I said in a 90-second statement last week that I take him at his word at that, but the distribution issue has not been sorted out. I'm failed to be convinced that the minister's doing everything in his power to sort that distribution problem out, because people are ringing us and emailing us saying: 'I can't get fuel. I can't get the delivery of fuel. I can't go down to the service station and fill up.'

When Australian families go to the supermarkets, even if they do drive electric vehicles to get there, and they start to see shelves that don't have food on them, they will understand how significant this fuel issue is for the agricultural sector. If we don't get fertiliser, we will see how significant this issue is in relation to a lot of the grain that we export. I was talking to some farming groups this morning about the Asian countries that rely on that grain. We are a great exporter of food, but we can't do it without diesel and we can't do it without fertiliser, and I'm not convinced that the minister is taking this seriously enough and doing everything he can to ensure that the diesel and fertiliser supply and therefore the food issue is being sorted out. (Time expired)

See this speech in context