Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my friend and very valued neighbour and south-west Sydney colleague, the member for Werriwa, for the question. As the Prime Minister has indicated, supply to our country does remain strong. Of the six ships that we informed the nation had been cancelled on the weekend, all have been replaced with alternative supplies from alternative countries and at least three other spot cargo offers have been confirmed and are on their way to Australia. That's a good thing. And our two refineries are working full pelt with all their production exclusively for Australian use, and that is certainly the way it should be in this situation.

That is not to say—as the government has always recognised—that there aren't real shortages, particularly in regional areas, that need to be addressed. What we're dealing with are a couple of things, and it's important to run through them for the House. We saw demand increase very dramatically and we saw suppliers, not unreasonably and, in fact, lawfully and legally, making sure that they supplied petrol to the people who had orders in advance—that is, people on contract. People in the spot market have not been able to be supplied at the same rate, as those contracts are honoured in the first instance—those people who ordered petrol in advance under the contract system. But we have been working very hard, and I do want to take this opportunity to say that there are a lot of people working hard at the moment. People in refineries, truckies, people in my department and people in state departments are working very hard—long hours—to try and see these shortages addressed. On behalf of the government, I want to say thank you to them.

I can report to the House that today Ampol has advised me about, for example, their year-on-year supplies to regional Australia and their supplies to independent distributors. For example, supplies in March this year compared to March last year are 40 per cent higher to independent suppliers in regional New South Wales, 33 per cent higher in regional Queensland, 66 per cent higher in South Australia, 22 per cent higher in Tasmania, 19 per cent higher in Victoria and 64 per cent higher in Western Australia. That's Ampol's supplies to independent distributors. Their supplies, in total, including to their own retail outlets, are up, for example, 34 per cent in New South Wales and up 44 per cent in South Australia—I would have thought members from regional South Australia would welcome that—and are up 27 per cent in total. That does not mean there aren't shortages, as we're dealing with the increased demand and with recovering as the supply chain recovers, as it had to during COVID. In so many instances, when you get a big increase in demand, it takes time for the supply chain to recover to backfill the existing demand. But the fact that that supply to regional Australia is up substantially shows that the measures this government has put in place with industry, and in working closely in collaboration with the states, are seeing real progress, which is what Australians so desperately deserve and are receiving.

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