Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to Senator Mulholland for that question in relation to international oil markets and fuel security. I can say that this government has made sure that Australia is more fuel secure that it has been in a generation. After the previous government and Mr Taylor and Mr Morrison's joint leadership of the energy portfolio in secret utterly failed to manage our obligations to keep Australians fuel secure, we implemented the Minimum Stockholding Obligation, which the previous—

But you never implemented it, Senator Paterson. It was words, but you never implemented it. As a result of that, we have 1.5 billion litres of petrol on hand and three billion litres of diesel in our Minimum Stockholding Obligation—in effect, a strategic reserve. I understand why the coalition is so sensitive about this proposition and why they join with One Nation to go around trying to frighten little old ladies about it. They try and profit from conflict and profit from trying to create a sense of crisis, when they never did anything themselves.

The person most responsible for 'never doing nothing' was Mr Taylor, the member for Hume, who is now their leader. I'm not as posh as you, Senator McGrath; I just say it the way I want to say it: he never did nothing. He put our fuel reserve in Texas. That was his contribution to Australia's fuel security—a made-up fuel reserve. It may be in El Paso—I don't know—but it's somewhere in Texas.