Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Fuel Excise Relief) Bill 2026. Before I do, I want to say that people on this side of the chamber will make no apology for bringing to the government's attention the seriousness of the issue, particularly in the industries that keep Australia moving and pay for Australia, which are mining and agriculture. The fact that they haven't been able to get diesel and there have been price shocks seems to have been missed a bit by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. It is our job, as the representatives of our constituents, to bring these concerns to the attention of the parliament and the government. That's exactly what we've done.

Australians are under real pressure at the bowser. Families, small businesses, farmers and freight operators are feeling it every day. Any measure that offers that short-term relief deserves to be acknowledged. We acknowledge the government for coming to the party on fuel excise relief, as the opposition suggested last week. A temporary reduction in taxes and charges is not a fuel security policy. It may ease the pain today, but it does nothing to protect Australia tomorrow. It is important, but, as the shadow Treasurer said, for it to not be inflationary, it needs to be offset by some other cuts or some other measures in the budget. We need to make sure that this measure itself is not inflationary. I would have thought that was self-evident. So we responsibly made some suggestions about how this excise tax cut could be offset so as not to be inflationary. I think those are sensible measures. They acknowledge that, before the Middle East conflict even started, which has in large part caused this fuel issue, Australia was under serious inflationary pressure due to government spending.

The events of recent weeks show that Australia is not dealing with a routine price spike. We are confronting a structural vulnerability, one that goes to the heart of our economy and our national security. That vulnerability is set out clearly in the Page Research Centre's report All at sea: fuel, war and Australia's Achilles heel. It is a warning this parliament cannot afford to ignore. I recommend that every thinking person, every person who cares about Australia's future, read this report by the Page Research Centre.

Australia runs on diesel. It doesn't run on slogans. It doesn't run on the government. It runs on diesel. We often talk about fuel as if petrol prices are the whole story, but they are not. Diesel powers freight and logistics across vast distances. It underpins agriculture, mining, construction and manufacturing. It sustains aviation, emergency services and defence operations. Passenger vehicles account for only around 30 per cent of liquid fuel demand in Australia. Around 70 per cent of liquid fuel demand comes from freight, farming, aviation, mining and industry, which rely overwhelmingly on diesel and cannot be electrified at scale in the foreseeable future. So, when the government talks about fuel relief on the one hand and electric vehicles on the other, it is entirely missing the central reality of Australia's diesel dependent economy.

The second reality is even more confronting, and that is Australia no longer produces its own fuel in any meaningful sense. We import roughly 90 to 95 per cent of our liquid fuels. More than three quarters of the supply comes from our region in Asia. We have two operating refineries supplying about 20 per cent of demand. But the argument of how many refineries we've got and what we've got here misses the point that they rely heavily on imported feedstock, mostly crude oil from the Middle East. So, in practice, over 90 per cent of Australia's fuel supply depends on ships arriving safely at our ports. That is manageable only if the world remains calm, shipping lanes remain open and markets function as they always have. But, as we've seen in the last month, that is no longer the world we live in.

The Page report doesn't deal in hypotheticals. It looks at what is already happening. Conflict in the Middle East has disrupted shipping through key choke points, insurance markets have withdrawn cover for tankers, prices have spiked and physical supplies have tightened despite the conflict being thousands of kilometres away. The lesson is obvious: if a distant conflict can rattle Australia's fuel supply, a major conflict in our own region would be devastating. Modern warfare does not require fleets of tankers to be sunk. The credible threat of missiles, drones, mines or submarines is enough to halt commercial shipping, and in those circumstances Australia cannot assume that the market will provide. Markets cannot deliver fuel that cannot physically reach our shores.

Some argue that bigger fuel reserves are the answer, and reserves matter, but they are not the solution on their own. Australia currently holds around 30 days of fuel stocks, far less than many comparable nations. But reserves buy time; they do not restore supply, and, without a credible way to replace fuel once reserves are drawn down, stockpiling simply delays the point of failure. It becomes a countdown clock, not a safety net. That is why a strategy focused on reserves alone gives the illusion of security without delivering the reality.

The core finding of the Page Research Centre, which should have been obvious and has been obvious to people who have sat in this place, is that fuel security is national security. Domestic production is really the only strategy that delivers genuine fuel security—not diversification, not electrification, not modest stockpiles. Only producing fuel at home changes the structure of Australia's risk profile when it comes to fuel security. If Australia can produce a meaningful share of its own liquid fuels, then shipping blockades lose their coercive power, reserves become a true buffer rather than a last resort, defence planning becomes more realistic and our strategic value to our allies increases. Fuel security is not just an economic issue; it's a defence issue, a food security issue and a sovereignty issue.

What does a serious fuel security strategy looks like? Well, the Page report sets out practical framework for action. This is not policy at this point, but it is a valuable contribution to the debate at a time when I think Australia and Australians are starting to look at what we think we've always known, which is that we can fill our diesel tanks of our necessary fleet of vehicles that contribute to not only mining and agriculture—the things that pay for Australia—but also supply chains, getting food to markets and all of these important things, and just hoping that the ship arrives from the Asian refinery is not enough.

Firstly, the research report recommends that we remove barriers to domestic exploration and production. Much of what is required is regulatory clarity and political permission, not necessarily taxpayer subsidies. The markets can do this.

Secondly, we need to expand and modernise refining capacity. Australia's refineries were built for a petrol-heavy economy, and that no longer necessarily exists. The point does need to be made that electric vehicles can take over some of the passenger car fleet in metropolitan areas, and we welcome that. I just think that it should be market driven, not taxpayer-subsidy driven. But obviously there are new and emerging technologies, and people who live in cities and want to embrace that can and should, and this might encourage them to do that. What we don't want is to penalise regional people who need diesel vehicles. We need diesel focused refining capability that matches today's demand.

Thirdly, we need to pursue synthetic fuels at scale; Coal-to-liquids and gas-to-liquids are proven technologies that are already used overseas, and Australia has abundant feedstocks and the industrial capacity to do the same. Fourthly, we need to treat reserves as a bridge, not a destination. We should increase stocks but only alongside a credible plan to sustain supply. Finally, we should treat fuel security as a core national responsibility, with dedicated planning, funding and accountability. None of this is radical stuff. It's pragmatic risk management that any business would do, and it's in the interests of a nation to do it, when looking at sovereignty. It's pragmatic risk management in an increasingly dangerous world.

This brings us back to the government's announcement and the gap in the government's response. Fuel tax relief may help motorists this quarter, and we called for it. I acknowledge that the government has moved in this direction at the urging of the opposition last week, but it doesn't do anything to address Australia's near-total reliance on imported diesel, the vulnerability of maritime supply routes, the collapse of domestic refining capacity and the absence of a credible plan for crisis or wartime fuel supply—and lower prices do not equal secure supply. By focusing on short-term relief without a long-term strategy, the government risks giving Australians a false sense of security. The other issue is that, on its own, a fuel excise cut could be inflationary to an already inflationary economy. That is why the coalition set out a very sensible plan for offsets.

We've got to make a choice about Australia's future, and we've got to acknowledge what we are. We're not a small, resource-poor island nation. We're a vast continent rich in energy, minerals and industrial capability, yet we've chosen policies that leave us dependent on long, fragile supply chains for the single most critical input to our economy. Fuel self-reliance is not isolationism; it is resilience. It doesn't mean ending trade or disengaging from the world. It means securing essentials so Australia cannot be coerced, paralysed or brought to its knees by events beyond our control. It actually strengthens our trade position. It strengthens our strategic value to our allies, and therefore it strengthens our position in an economic sense but also in a security sense.

In conclusion, fuel tax relief might win a headline, but fuel security wins us our future. The current fuel crisis is not an anomaly. It is a warning. If we content ourselves with short-term relief while ignoring long-term vulnerability, the next crisis will be measured not in cents per litre but in days until the tanks run dry. That's not to be alarmist but to think about what could happen to Australia. Everyone in this chamber loves this country; I have no doubt about that. I'm not sure about the other one, but everyone in this chamber loves this country and wants to see it succeed. Therefore, we need to have these discussions about what a future secure Australia looks like.

Fuel security is national security, and Australia can do better in this area and must do better in this area. We welcome the government bringing on the excise cut, but the amendments from the shadow Treasurer are eminently sensible, and I encourage the government to look at them to make a necessary measure in the legislation even better and to make sure that it considers inflation and the inflationary pressures of anything it might do when making a decision, which is why we talked about offsets.

This is a really difficult time for Australia. I worry about what will happen to our industries in the next month. I worry about what's happening to the farmers, who are already talking about reducing the amount of crop they might put in due to fuel issues, but more importantly due to urea supplies, which is fertiliser that comes from gas in the Middle East. I also think that we are about to see, in a real sense, how much our economy and the things that pay for Australia and all of the things that we like—Medicare and all these things—rely on the mining and agriculture industries, which run on diesel. We want to keep those industries going because they pay for the things that we value as a society. They run on that very important thing: diesel. We have to look at fuel security as national security and as part of our sovereign future.

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