Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

The government won't be supporting this Greens amendment. Provisions in the bill are sufficient to inform the Australian public about the payments made to refineries. Aggregated payment information will be published on the department's website quarterly. The bill also allows for legislative rules to include further information about these payments should it be considered appropriate. The rules will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The government will be able to ensure that only appropriate information is recorded and published and that commercially confidential information is not disclosed. There is a risk that commercial information could be disclosed through this amendment. Disaggregated data at the level proposed would likely pose commercial-in-confidence issues. It would give information about the amounts of different fuel types produced by the refineries which is not otherwise publicly available. The Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Act, which also legally protects this information, would also require amendments, and this would potentially delay the bill's passage. It's the government's intention that, through the rules, only the aggregated amount paid quarterly to both refineries would be published. The refineries are also required to report publicly to the ASX, which would include reporting payments from the government. The refineries report to the ASX at least twice a year.