Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

All foreign owned. In government, the coalition spent over $260 million, adding 40 per cent to our diesel storages. We created the minimum stockholding obligation—not Labor, as the minister likes to claim. Labor was mugged by reality on the role of gas in the energy transition. High costs of doing business and the cost of living due to Labor's renewables-or-bust approach drove Labor to accept reality. So too, the Iran war has forced Labor to accept the reality that we need fuel security.

Labor had all their eggs in the renewables basket. They proposed that everyone own electric vehicles, despite the geographic realities in regional Australia, and that all our electricity would be from intermittent solar and wind. As I said, 50 per cent of Australia's total energy demand is liquid fuels. Labor have been dragged kicking and screaming by the realities of global geopolitics to do what the rest of the world was already doing: build up energy capacity on fossil fuels and renewables.

Labor was pursuing Greens votes in inner cities and throwing families and our economy under the bus. Part-time Energy Minister Bowen has been preening and posing on the international stage as COP31 president in charge of the COP31 negotiations. This is a government more focused on looking good on the international stage than on Australian national security. Minister Bowen spoke today about being ahead of the curve. That word 'curve' might be triggering for some—tired old Labor dusting off the old playbooks. This is a government that has been behind the curve since it took office four years ago. The dog didn't eat their homework; there was no homework to eat. The dog is innocent.

Here are some potential solutions to this fuel security crisis from a party of government: prioritising and investing in Australian exploration and drilling for oil, gas and unconventional petroleum; exploring options to produce more liquid fuels from our coal reserves; further building up the in-country fuel reserves the coalition bolstered in government; investing in our refining capacity; supporting complementary fuel streams; and establishing a dedicated fuel security budget. I look forward to seeing what the Labor government does with that.

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