Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for McPherson was talking about coalition policy when it came to energy security, and I recall that, from 2013, AEMO was warning us of a coming gas shortfall. What was done? Well, a whole lot of nothing. We have known this was coming for a long time, and the steps necessary to ensure the sovereignty of our supply were not taken.

We've got three distinct issues raised in this debate. The first is liquid fuels and the very urgent issue we confront in the face of the Middle East crisis, particularly with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Related is electrification and the importance of making sure that we can minimise our dependency on an increasingly unstable supply of liquid fuels. Then, thirdly, there's the important work being done in relation to the gas reservation scheme. I'll try to deal with each of them in turn with as much order as I possibly can.

In relation to the liquid fuels, obviously we found ourselves confronted, as the world did, with a sudden shortage of liquid fuels. Over many years we'd become dependent on liquid fuels from overseas. Australia is a country very used to having an abundance of everything we need, but there is a notable exception when it comes to liquid fuels. We have some in the ground, but, even if we were to uneconomically dig up everything we have and sieve all the oil through every bit of sand, we would not have a forever supply of oil. We've been importing it for a long time, and, regrettably, our storage and refining of it has diminished over a period of decades.

We've found ourselves in a difficult situation, but we have seen the leadership of this government get to work quickly. We've managed to secure more supply in the here and now, during this crisis, than we had beforehand. We've leveraged our reciprocal relationships with partners overseas and ensured that we've had a continuity of supply. We've made legislative amendments to ensure that we can pull every lever available to us as a country to ensure that those who need the fuel have it. That's important for farmers, industry and tradies. It's important for mums and dads and everyone who depends on vehicles or machinery in their work. So that has been incredibly important work.

And then we have to think long term. We need to learn the lessons from this: storing more, refining more and ensuring that we don't continue making the same mistakes we've made in decades past. I really don't want to be too partisan about this, because this is too important. This is about our sovereignty in terms of our energy, and we all know that energy is going to be essential for our future prosperity. We know that there are shortcomings in this country's approach over a period of decades, and we need to get to work and do things about it. That is exactly what this government is doing, and I applaud that.

In relation to electrification, while this does seem to be a bit more of a contentious political issue, minimising our dependency on energy that we do not have an abundance of is good sense. Where we can electrify things in a practical way that is economically efficient, we should do so there is diesel there for the farmers and there for industry where it's needed. If households are happy to have an electric car and it works for them, that's wonderful. So it is ensuring that we are electrifying what we can practically do so that we have an energy supply with renewables backed with gas and storage to ensure that we can facilitate that in an effective and efficient way, and we've been working in that direction for a long time. Sometimes when we say the word 'renewables', people get a little bit crazy, but it is part of a bigger plan to ensure that we have that access to sovereign energy.

Gas reservation is an important step for the country. As I said, we've been talking about predictable shortfalls of gas on our east coast, which seems absolutely crazy. Given that we're one of the world's biggest exporters of gas, how can we in Australia be talking about gas shortages? It's absolutely ludicrous. And so it's important that we finally see real action being taken to ensure that Australians, as leading exporters of gas, don't have to worry about a shortage of gas. That is just good common sense. We haven't got the final details of the policy yet, because we actually do detailed policy work, engage with relevant stakeholders, design a policy, predict shortcomings, see if we can address them in the design of the policy and then implement something that will actually work in the long term. I have no shame in saying that that is the approach we're taking, and that is an approach I would recommend in all areas of public policy.

We are thinking ahead, thinking about the lessons we've taken from this period and ensuring that we're implementing those lessons and not forgetting them. Often when we see troubles, they say, 'Keep calm because there's another disaster around the corner,' and there no doubt will be and, we won't have predicted it yet. But we do know that these are the lessons we need to learn and we need to get onto this job fast. So I'm incredibly proud of the important steps being taken by the government. I think we should all be encouraging that. I also think we have to be forward looking in what our energy mix looks like in the future to make sure that we maximise our national resilience to ensure that we don't again fall into the troubles we've had. I've had people in tears in my office worried about the future of their businesses if this Strait of Hormuz crisis continues and fuel prices continue to go up. This is life or death for a lot of businesses and sectors around the country, and we owe it to Australians to do everything we can to ensure energy security for our country going forward.

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