Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is yet another self-congratulating motion moved by the government in relation to domestic fuel and gas supply and, in particular, the gas reservation scheme that they've got for the east coast, which, might I say, we've asked for time and time again on this side of the House. I'm pleased that they've finally come to the table in part.

This is in relation to leadership, because we've seen at a time—I'm speaking in relation to the fuel reserves. Labor came into government soon after COVID. The coalition had to make the tough decisions during COVID, and then COVID was nearing the end, and Labor came into office. You'd think that any reasonable government would have, in the days post COVID, done a total reassessment to identify the areas of national vulnerability. But what instead occurred is that it's taken a crisis for this government to wake up, and it's taken the situation in the Middle East for them to come to a position in relation to our fuel reserves.

Over the last four years of this government, the Prime Minister and the defence minister have, time and time again, said that Australia finds itself in the most complex and threatening strategic circumstances since the end of the Second World War, but we haven't seen the appropriate action to match those words. We haven't seen that. Everybody on this side of the Chamber understands that petrol, diesel, coal and gas all power the Australian economy, and fuel security is national security.

The coalition announced our gas reservation plan many months ago, and Labor rejected it at the time. In traditional Labor fashion, they are always last to lead in a crisis, and we have seen that being the case now. But there are still some parts of this Labor government's policy that are half-baked or that we still don't have the details on. We're not sure whether the 20 per cent obligation applies to total LNG exports, to uncontracted gas, to prospective contracts or to some combination of each. The government hasn't explained how existing contracts will be protected while still enforcing a new domestic supply obligation from exporters. The detail hasn't been clearly articulated in relation to the implementation of the east coast market strategy, and there are further questions in relation to how the scheme will increase supply, support new investment and avoid pushing smaller Australian gas companies out of the market.

Critical to all of this is the fact that Labor doesn't truly back more Australian fuel and gas for Australians. If it did, it wouldn't stop with this policy. If the Labor Party genuinely backed in Australian gas and Australian fuel for Australians, they would actually be speeding up projects, not shutting them down and shutting them out of faster approvals under their new environmental protection regime. It's one thing for the Labor Party to congratulate themselves and pat themselves on the back for appropriating the coalition's policy for the east coast reservation scheme, but it's another when they're not prepared to match that with genuine support for the Australian gas industry. Serious fuel security means securing the whole supply chain, and that's from Australian resources in the ground to fuel reserves in storage. If this government is going to put its money where its mouth is in relation to securing decent energy supplies and decent fuel supplies for this country, it needs to start getting serious about supporting Australian gas extraction and fast-tracking approvals, and it also needs to provide the details of its still unclear gas policy.

The coalition has an end-to-end plan for more fuel, more storage and more security. We've spoken about doubling minimum reserves of petrol, diesel and jet fuel. We've spoken about investing $800 million to unlock more than one billion litres of new fuel storage capability. Those are just some of the long-term generational policies that we have put forward. But I say to this government: fuel security is national security, and you need to get serious.

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