Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Fuel Security Bill 2021, is not about fuel security. It's about $2 billion. It's about handing over $2 billion to the government's oil company mates to try and prop up ageing polluting oil refineries that are on their last legs. If this bill were really about fuel security—meaning ensuring sufficient fuel for transport so that we can keep transporting goods and people around the country in the short, medium and long term—you would think that it would actually move us forward by focusing on the two things in its name: firstly, what particular types of fuels we should be using to move people and goods around the country—what types of fuels does it make sense to support—and, secondly, securing the supplies of those fuels.

If there's $2 billion on offer then you'd think that any sensible government would want to ensure that that $2 billion is spent wisely on these fuels and does in fact secure the supplies of these fuels. But, no, the bill is fixated only on propping up the production of polluting fossil fuels—petrol, diesel and jet fuel—rather than paying any attention at all to clean alternatives. This legislation is extraordinarily out of step with the times. At a time when the rest of the world is taking action to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, when governments around the world are committing to ending subsidies on fossil fuels and slashing their carbon pollution, we are increasing our dependency. We are increasing our subsidies. It is just so wrong. This bill is basically providing massive handouts of our taxpayer dollars to some of the biggest polluters in the country. This is while we're in a climate crisis, when the No. 1 responsibility of any government concerned about the security and safety of the community has got to be shifting away from burning oil, coal and gas.

Let's have a bit of a think about what could be done with $2 billion. That would secure supplies of clean fuels and/or the ability for people and goods to be transported using a minimum of fuel, or perhaps none at all. Let me just summarise some of the options that the government are obstinately ignoring in their quest to prop up their fossil fuel mates. No. 1. is serious support for electric vehicles. That means electric cars, electricity buses and electric freight vehicles. How about having an electric vehicles strategy? How about having some targets, like other countries and other conservative governments all around the world have? How about rolling out a network of fast-charging infrastructure so that everybody in the country has got the opportunity to drive a non-polluting electric vehicle?

How about some incentives to help overcome the fact that electric vehicles are, on average in Australia at the moment, $20,000 to $30,000 more expensive than internal combustion engine vehicles? How about requiring that people who import vehicles actually have to import clean vehicles as a proportion of their imports? How about investing in renewable energy to power these electric vehicles, turning Australia into a renewable energy superpower with solar, wind and pumped hydro?

How about upgrading the grid to make sure that it's fit for purpose for renewables, so we can shift energy around to where it's needed? How about investing in green hydrogen, produced by this abundance of renewable energy, and then the hydrogen infrastructure, so that it can be used for heavy vehicles, freight trains and substituted for fossil fuel gas and exported to the world as a zero-carbon fuel?

How about investing in public transport and in walking and cycling infrastructure to give people the opportunity to get out of their private vehicles altogether? Give people the choice of great public transport and they use it. Give people the option of riding their bike safely, which requires no more fuel than your Weet-Bix in the morning, and give them the choice of doing that on dedicated bike infrastructure and people will use it. How about investing in low-carbon or zero-carbon shipping, investing in electric aircraft? How about producing biodiesel and other green liquid fuels, like producing jet fuel from algae? In other words, take the types of actions that governments all around the country are doing at the moment. They're taking this seriously, tackling two problems hand in hand—our fuel security concerns and the climate crisis. But, no.

Just imagine we had a target like Norway does of no sales of new internal combustion engines by 2025. That's in four years' time. Or in the UK, a ban on sales of internal combustion cars by 2030. Imagine, like in Norway, in the UK, in Germany and in other countries around the world, that we were actually seeing a rapid shift to electric vehicles. Imagine what that would do for our need for polluting petrol and diesel. Correct—it would absolutely slash our need for polluting petrol and diesel. Our fuel security problem would be well on the way to being solved.

The government and the Labor Party talk jobs as being a reason why they are going to support this massive subsidy for refineries. The Prime Minister's media release speaks of this cash splash resulting in 3,000 jobs—1,250 direct employees across the two refineries and creating up to another 1,750 construction jobs. I'm very curious about the projected 'up to 1,750 construction jobs' that are apparently going to be created to accelerate the necessary major infrastructure upgrades. I think we need to take this figure with a very big grain of salt and note that these construction jobs are only likely to last for a few years. As for securing the jobs of the 1,250 workers in the two refineries, apparently the government has secured a commitment that these refineries won't close before 2027—that's six years. I would not be betting any money at all on them continuing beyond that given the age of these refineries and given where the world and Australia need to be in slashing our use of petrol, diesel, and jet fuel beyond that.

But, look, let's just take it at face value. Let's pretend that these job numbers are real and let's do the sums. Two billion dollars for 3,000 jobs is $666,667 per job, each of which may only be for a few years. This is a really serious subsidy for fossil-fuel jobs that could be spent so much better in helping the shift to jobs in clean, green, zero-carbon industries. Why does this matter? Why do we care about where our money's spent, whether it's spent on propping up oil refineries or in clean energy?

I'll bring it back to the basics. What every government in the world should be focusing on is its most urgent task. We are facing a climate crisis. We are facing a climate crisis where, on current projections, we are headed to global average temperatures three, four or more degrees above what is safe for humanity and the rest of life on the planet. Four degrees of global heating means no more growing wheat in Australia. It means pretty much no more growing anything in the areas that are currently our major agricultural production zones. It means metres of sea level rise, flooding the homes of millions of Australians. It means wildfires that are more extreme, hotter, more extensive than they were in the 2019-20 Black Summer fires. It means more extreme floods when there aren't fires. It means unaccountable numbers of plants and animals going extinct. It means billions of people across the world being climate refugees, homeless without a way to feed themselves and looking to find anywhere on the planet where they can survive, and it means billions more people suffering, struggling to survive, living absolutely wretched lives. That is why it matters. That is why we need to be taking urgent action. There is no more time for hard-heartedness. There is no more time for half-solutions. There is no more time for subsidising the polluting fossil fuel industries.

Other countries around the world have accepted this challenge. Let me remind you of what the G7 agreed to just over a week ago. They agreed to halve their collective emissions by 2030, to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025—not to hand out billions of dollars to oil refineries—and to achieve an overwhelmingly decarbonised power system in the 2030s. Australia is part of the world, yes? We consider ourselves to be an advanced, developed country, yes? We're not separate on another planet. We have a responsibility to play our part.

The good news is that there are so many ways that we can shift to zero carbon and zero-carbon technologies. There are so many ways in which we can change the way we are living, working and producing food and fibre and manufacturing. Some of these technologies are mature technologies. Some of them need some more work and development. It really makes sense to get a move on with the more mature technologies while we sort out the rest. These mature technologies include renewable energy, batteries and electric vehicles. Transport is an area where we can make huge inroads, and transport is 20 per cent of our carbon pollution. It makes so much sense to do everything we can to shift our transport to zero-carbon transport. This is such an opportunity. If we have a government that has $2 billion it wants to spend to create fuel security, then I can tell you there are so many ways it could be spending that money, ways that will not only create fuel security but will also make big strides towards tackling our carbon pollution.

That brings me back to the bill before us. Basically, while the rest of the world is acting, transforming their fleets of vehicles, this government has its head buried in the sand. We have been waiting more than two years for any kind of action on electric vehicles, but this government is just ignoring them and bringing forward legislation like this. It's still scrambling even on this bill. It's rushing urgently to get it through the Senate without a proper process. The bill was not referred to a committee. There was no public exposure draft of the bill for community consultation. There has been no Senate inquiry process; that was opposed by the government when we suggested it. Instead, we have a rushed, artificial deadline of 1 July to hand over an enormous amount of money without any scrutiny.

I will be moving a series of amendments to this bill to try to improve this awful piece of legislation. We think they are very sensible and reasonable amendments. I really hope that the government and the Labor Party will support them in order to improve this awful bill. First up, instead of spending $2 billion on fuel refineries, we should be spending that sort of money on a national electric vehicle strategy, with public investment in charging infrastructure and incentives to encourage people to shift from polluting vehicles to electric vehicles. We've also got an amendment that's going to require the Productivity Commission to report on this framework and on how cost-effective it is compared to other mechanisms. The Liberal Party like to say that they are cost-efficient. The reality is that they use that argument whenever they want to oppose spending but never when it comes to subsidies for their mates. We also have an amendment that is going to require the government to provide more detail on the amount of subsidy spending and who it has gone to—simple, basic transparency. Finally, we think that, even if this paying money to their fossil fuel mates goes ahead, this fuel security framework absolutely should not kick into action until the Liberal Party has taken some basic steps on electric vehicles. They are very reasonable, sensible steps: asking them publicly, 'What is your strategy on electric vehicles?' and tabling analysis by the Productivity Commission as to how the strategy compares to other countries. These are really sensible, basic transparency and accountability mechanisms that would at least mean that we would know what we were getting for our money. They would at least mean that you'd be able to compare the wisdom of subsidising the production of polluting fossil fuels with the wisdom of investing in clean technology.

Let's be clear. The Greens support fuel security. We want real action to reduce our reliance on imported fossil fuels. We want clear policy, with public consultation, on how we can improve fuel security. But this bill does nothing of the sort. It's handing over $2 billion to fuel refineries. The regulation impact statement didn't even consider the option of encouraging EV. This bill is an embarrassment to the Liberal Party, and we hope that the Senate will be supporting our very sensible amendments.

I move the second reading amendment that's been circulated in my name:

Omit all words after "That", substitute: "the bill be withdrawn and the Senate calls on the Government to divert the full funding amount to a national electric vehicle strategy that includes:

(a) clear consumer incentives to ensure rapid electric vehicle uptake; and

(b) public investment in a national fast charging infrastructure network".