Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is 30 per cent self-sufficient in oil, yet only three per cent in petrol. As a big five in grain and sugar—ethanol feedstocks—we're uniquely placed for self-sufficiency, yet we live at the mercy of the Middle East. Prime Minister, will you, like China, India, Europe, America, Indonesia and Brazil, mandate ethanol, providing $12,000 a year to every Australian family and, quoting Morris Iemma, saving over a thousand lives a year? Most importantly, my horse has died and it'll save me four kilometres a walk to buy food.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by expressing my condolences to the member for Kennedy on the loss of his beloved horse. We all love our animals, and I know that people particularly love their horses. That relationship is important. My government knows that fuel security is really important, and that it's essential as well that we make more things here. I'll take on board the comments of and the suggestions from the member for Kennedy, and have those discussions with my minister and members of my government.

I must say, the principle that the member for Kennedy is putting forward, which is that we need to be more resilient and more self-reliant here, is something that not only do I support in theory but we are putting in place in practice. That's what a future made in Australia is about. That is why we are establishing a strategic fleet so that we bring back Australian shipping, because that is important. That's why we've created an Australian domestic fuel reserve, that's why we're finalising a gas reservation to provide more affordable gas for Australian users and manufacturers, and that's why we're investing in making low-carbon liquid fuels here, building our energy independence and our economic resilience. It's opposed by those opposite but something that the minister is—the two ministers together, really, are—making such an enormous effort in.

When the Leader of the Opposition was energy minister, of course, he had a different plan. That was the plan for fuel reserves in Texas. That's where Australia's reserves were going to be. Now, if you think about the challenges that the world has thrown at Australia over the last few years—the global pandemic; the biggest international energy crisis since the seventies; the sharpest rise in global inflation since the 1980s; and the aftershocks of the conflict, particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine—what that shows us is that, if Australia is always the last link in the supply chain, we will be vulnerable. So I want to work with the member for Kennedy and other members across the board to ensure that our economy is more resilient and that we're less reliant on these international shocks that can occur. It's because they are important. It's why we had to intervene, for example, to put caps on gas and coal prices as a result of that global spike that occurred as well.

My government will always stand up for Australian manufacturing as well. We'll stand up for the good, secure jobs that it creates around Australia but particularly in our regions, such as that represented by the member for Kennedy.