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

When the government follows the coalition in policy, you know you're on a good thing. Certainly with the halving of the fuel excise, that's what was called for last week, and that's what's been done. And the road user charges—there's some relief there. To be fair, let's applaud the government for that, but it took them to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table, albeit the National Cabinet table, to do this. But credit where credit is due; there will be some relief at the bowser. Again, as has been said, will it solve the issues of accessibility and availability of supply to regional petrol stations? That remains to be seen. Is there a credible, workable plan going forward? That remains to be seen.

I do worry about the workload that the government has put on Anthea Harris. Already she has been given the task of reviewing the Water Act—no mean feat; it's a big job. Now she's been tasked with the role of doing the job of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. She has been given his job, and being the Fuel Supply Taskforce Coordinator is going to require a lot of her time. She's going to have to balance her water responsibilities with her fuel responsibilities, and, as the member for Nicholls knows, fuel and water doesn't always mix. I'm sure she's very qualified, but the Minister for Climate Change and Energy has, in so many ways, abrogated his responsibility.

Here is a minister who just keeps getting it wrong. He got it wrong when he allowed 800 boats and 55,000 illegal arrivals on these shores. He got it wrong when he, some might cruelly say, cost the now government the opportunity to get in earlier when he brought in those franking credits, which was going to be a tax on ordinary everyday Australians. They rejected what the opposition had to say at the time, and of course, he famously said, 'Well, if you don't like it, don't vote for us,' and they didn't. That was the 2019 election.

We're at a crisis at the moment, and that has finally been acknowledged by the government. I will say that it's not just a national crisis; it is an international crisis. I listened closely to the Prime Minister in question time when he said, 'We do have a war in Iran, and we acknowledge that.' But we've also got, as the member for Nicholls quite correctly pointed out in his excellent contribution, farmers who are in the sowing season. It is the start of an important part of their yearly cycle; that time of year where they either direct drill seeds straight into the ground—dry ground in many parts—or start scarifying their paddocks in order to sow. Unless they can get diesel in their big heavy farm machinery, they don't sow.

Our farmers are not only the best stewards of the environment; they are the biggest risk-takers in this nation, and we cannot do without them. If they don't get to sow now, if they don't get their crops in by the end of April or early May, then we are going to be in a world of trouble come harvest time—traditionally around October, November and December for those dryland crops—and it is going to cause an issue of food security. We have a fuel security crisis now. We will then, in six or so months time, be in a food security crisis. And what a food security crisis leads to is a national security crisis. I'm not being melodramatic. I am just being absolutely truthful.

I heard the member for Nicholls talking about biofuels and biodiesel and the difficulty of getting that online straight up, and I realised that this is something that does take years. It does take long-term planning, but we have to, as he would acknowledge, start now. I know that Tim Rose, in my hometown of Wagga Wagga, has Southern Oil Refining. It's been there for some time. It now produces 20 million litres of very fine oil and, along with his plant at Gladstone, the Northern Oil Refinery, which produces 50 million litres of oil, it converts sump into 70 million litres of oil a year.

Now, in the scheme of things on the national fuel front, they are small numbers, but that can be upscaled. He has had a plan on the desk of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy for at least two years, if not a lot longer, to see what can be done to upscale the southern and northern oil refineries. We could call them re-refineries because what they're doing is converting sump into usable oil. More than that, his plant at Gladstone has the potential, with a bit of engineering and some political will, to convert old tyres into usable oil and prickly pear, acacia into oil. This must be considered. We have to get sovereignty in our fuel reserves, in our oil stocks. We must. That particular proposal that Mr Rose has had on the table, in the inbox of the minister, must be retrieved, dusted off and examined thoroughly.

As part of the oil product stewardship program and the role of the minister, we have to have some political will in this space. Eromanga, since 1986, has produced mining-grade oil. Let's see what we can do there. You only have to recall COVID—it wasn't that many years ago. We were apparently going to be out of sanitiser. Well, we looked at what we could do. We got our manufacturing online, and within days, not weeks, we were able to produce the hand sanitiser that the nation needed at an affordable rate, and accessible and available. We can do the same. We have the know-how, we have the skills, we have the expertise. This government must be pulling every lever to make sure that we've got available fuel, available oil, available diesel. We need it. As I say, National Cabinet will work with the Prime Minister of the day.

I know, when we had COVID and we had issues around transport, some of the finest ministers, would you believe, came on board when trucks were taking hours upon hours to get over the border. Having had that meeting of the ministers that night—and I specifically refer to Rita Saffioti and to Jacinta Allan, Labor ministers in Western Australia and Victoria—they were able to work with me to ensure that we were able to get trucks across the border in next to no time. That relationship worked well, and I have to say that it provided the difference between trucks being able to deliver groceries and medical supplies in a matter of minutes and what we were encountering, which was a matter of hours. It wasn't going to work, and we knew that. So I know it can be done. I know it can be achieved. It just takes the political will, the courage, the know-how and the bipartisanship to make it happen.

The situation with our liquid fuels is that 50 per cent of the nation's imports by weight are liquid fuels. You can add another 10 per cent on top of that with petrochemicals. We need to do everything we can to ensure that those ships continue, that those contracts are met. We also need to make sure, as the member for Nicholls said, that the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Strategic Reserve) Bill 2026 takes into account the absolute need to ensure that oil, gas and coal are part of this government's deliberations and regulations and legislation. Export Finance had this mandate not that long ago, under this government, to reject and rebuff those fossil fuels. Haven't we been caught with our pants down. Haven't we been caught short when it comes to ensuring that we have ready-made Australian supplies on hand and available.

I know the Minister for Climate Change and Energy has been going on and on about the fact that supplies are okay—nothing to see here. Well, I'm sorry, but there is a big issue, and it's not just about affordability of prices. I saw the other day, in the Northern Territory, a report of diesel prices of $4.25 a litre. Certainly, across my electorate, diesel is now selling at $3.30 a litre. That's if you can get it. So it's not just about affordability; it's about accessibility and availability. The supplies just aren't getting out to regional stations. Then you've got farmers putting their tanks down under lock and key, and there are reports of farmers being charged. This is not just now; this is just a week or a fortnight ago, when the crisis first started. They were only able to get their tanks half filled. Then they were paying $3 a litre and then they were having to pay cash. I've got to tell you those sorts of reports are alarming. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission needs to investigate all of those allegations, because, obviously, if it's only a cash system, then somebody is pocketing that money, and I dare say that that money wouldn't be going through the ATO.

But, anyway, I digress—

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