Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes reports of fuel wholesalers rationing petrol and diesel across Australia, raising serious concerns about fuel supply;

(2) condemns the Government's failure to reassure Australians that a plan is in place to protect the nation's fuel security;

(3) recognises Australia is a diesel-reliant economy, with fuel critical to transporting food, pharmaceuticals and essential goods;

(4) further notes the former Government introduced the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Act to strengthen monitoring of Australia's fuel supplies; and

(5) calls on the Government to urgently outline its fuel security strategy and use its powers to identify and protect industries at risk of fuel shortages, including farmers, fishers, manufacturers and transport operators.

I've moved this motion today because Australia is in the midst of a crisis. Wholesalers are rationing fuel across the country, yet the government has failed to provide a clear plan to protect our fuel security. Fifty-two per cent of the energy consumed in this economy is liquid fuels. As a diesel reliant economy, we cannot afford to wait. Fuel is the lifeblood that moves our food, our medicine and our essential goods. Without it, our supply chain grinds to a halt.

Today, before this motion was submitted, I was pleased to see the government listen to the coalition and halve the fuel excise for three months. I'm calling on the government to outline its real and actionable strategy. It is a time to use the tools at our disposal, like the monitoring powers established by the former government, to identify and protect the industries most at risk. From our farmers and fishers to our manufacturers and truckies, Australia deserves a guarantee that our livelihoods won't be left stranded by a lack of leadership.

The Prime Minister has shown no urgency. One in eight servos in New South Wales have run dry. Closer to home, as part of the No Fuel Here campaign, Grey is the second highest on the list with 55 outages across the electorate. And what is the Prime Minister's advice? He says we should buy an electric vehicle. While the sentiment of this statement by the Prime Minister may hold some water in the lake of make belief, we need to be living in the land of reality. The reality is Australians can't even afford to buy their groceries, pay their rent or pay their power bills, let alone buy a new electric car.

Today in Parliament House we had an electric prime mover on show. Well, I've done some research. The biggest electric prime movers made today have a big battery of 700 kilowatt hours. That is a big, heavy battery. On our farm, our prime movers tow about 114 tonnes of, typically, wheat or lentils. If you put that on this electric truck, guess what the range is? It's between 150 and 300 kilometres. Our farm has a five kilowatt SWER line. If our line on the farm was plugged into that truck to charge it up, running flat out, it would take 130 hours or 5.5 days to charge. Battery technology is great, but it is miles and miles away from being a legitimate replacement to industry.

We need the Prime Minister to do two things: release an immediate plan to distribute fuel to dry servos and build a long-term strategy for fuel security. His belated decision to underwrite imports does nothing to get petrol and diesel to stations today. While we will not block the fair work fairer fuel bill in the House, we note it lacks an end date or review period. We will scrutinise this closely to ensure appropriate checks and balances.

This neglect stretches beyond fuel; our food security faces a silent threat. We rely on the Middle East for 60 per cent of our imports of urea, which is the lifeblood of our crops. Shipments are delayed and experts warn the window to protect the 2026 season is closing fast. The coalition saw this coming and backed domestic urea production. This government simply has no plan. If our farmers cannot get fertiliser, city prices will skyrocket and regional producers will go bankrupt.

The message from the country is clear. We are tired of being ignored. This threatens the livelihood of a truckie moving goods across the Nullarbor or a farmer about to start seeding. Outsourcing this crisis to a taskforce coordinator only reinforces the chilling sense that no-one is firmly in charge. That is not leadership; it is cold hearted deflection. Under Labor, inflation is higher, interest rates are tighter and fuel is running out. I remind the House again that mining trucks cannot run on batteries, fishing boats cannot run on batteries and prime movers in the agricultural sector cannot run on batteries. We need to keep diesel moving in this economy.

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