Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Lambie. You're right that it's very important for us to do everything we can, with others in the international community, to impose a cost on Russia for its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. Since we have been in government we have increased the number of sanctions. We've imposed strict sanctions and trade measures to restrict the import, purchase and transport of oil coming from or originating in Russia. I also announced in June our first sanctions against what is known as the Russian shadow fleet, which they established to try to avoid sanctions and other compliance measures to, again, help starve Russia's war machine of oil revenue. As a result of measures we've taken, direct imports of these products have fallen from $80 million, before Russia's invasion, to zero.

But the senator raises a very important point, which I have made public comment about, which is how to deal with energy products that come in via third countries, that are dealt with in other countries and then imported as refined petroleum and other products from third countries. Regrettably—and I have pursued this—we don't have in place the mechanisms, nor does the international community, to track and monitor all of the products into third countries, because they're not in place. We are currently looking at what other options we could utilise to put further pressure on Russia's oil revenue. There isn't, at this stage, a global tracing system nor any regulation or oversight in the third countries that we're describing. So it's a real-world problem—a real economic problem—but we do share the same objective you do, Senator, which is to try and starve Mr Putin of oil revenue. (Time expired)