Nicolette Boele (Bradfield, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With all the great challenges come great opportunities. To put another way, in politics we should never let a good crisis go to waste. We are in the middle of a global energy crisis, and it's not the only one we've seen in recent times. From Russia's invasion of Ukraine to yet another war in the Middle East, rolling geopolitical crises continuously threaten global fuel supplies. At the same time, while the government is making progress on shifting our balance of energy use from fossil fuels to renewables, it's doing so with one hand tied behind its back, and this is because of the fuel tax credit scheme. It's an $11 billion annual Commonwealth subsidy that's paid for by the Australian taxpayer to make petrol and diesel cheaper for heavy on-road users and for users offroad on farms and mine sites.

This subsidy is a massive disincentive for miners to make a switch to electricity, a switch which would save the money, be better for the planet and, critically, at this moment in time, guarantee their fuel security and their business continuity. While we continue to have this ridiculously expensive, inefficient and ineffective headwind in the form of a petrol and diesel subsidy, we are not helping to wean our farmers and miners off their addiction to dirty, expensive and unreliable liquid fuels. We are not protecting our economy from price volatility and fuel supply risks, and we're not protecting them. The fuel tax credit scheme must be reformed and it must be reformed now.