Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The curriculum vitae of Wagga Wagga's Tim Rose describes him as a chemical engineer with degrees in both environmental science and business. It talks about his more than a quarter of a century of experience in industrial operations and re-refining. What it doesn't say is that he is a risk-taker—and indeed he is. He is the proprietor and brain, along with his wife, Camille, of the Southern Oil Refinery at Wagga Wagga and Northern Oil Refinery at Gladstone. Here is the potential key to unlocking our national fuel crisis, because what the Southern Oil Refinery and Northern Oil Refinery do is re-refine sump oil. They have the potential, in Gladstone, to turn prickly pear, acacia and old tyres into usable oil, usable fuel. This could well hold the key to future oil capability, sovereignty and success. He has had a proposal on the desk of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy for some time, for some years, and, sadly, it has not been acted upon.

The Southern and Northern Oil refineries have, since 2001 and 2014 respectively, produced millions of litres of oil. Indeed, the current equivalent is 50 million litres of oil at Gladstone and 20 million litres at Wagga Wagga. These are not insignificant numbers, particularly with the crisis that is currently besetting the nation. If we can invest in this and have the political will and the pluck to do the right thing—to make sure of the oil stewardship program, the funding, the capacity at those two plants—then we can create jobs and, more importantly, create oil. Isn't that what we're all seeking to do at the moment?

Then, of course, you've got Dick Honan, another great risk-taker, who has invested more than $1 billion in this nation, in infrastructure, in recent years. Dick Honan, of Manildra, is proposing—and has proposed for many, many years—an ethanol mandate. We have to look at these sorts of things as this oil crisis, this fuel crisis, confronts our farmers, the greatest risk-takers in this nation. If they don't get the fuel to fill up their tanks to sow the crops then we are going to be in a world of hurt. It's not just a fuel security problem. It's a food security problem. It's a national security issue.

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