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

Thanks, Senator Sterle. It's good to have a question from someone with practical experience, particularly of diesel supplies in Western Australia, rather than the besuited fake political questions that came earlier on. The minimum stockholding guarantees a baseline level of domestic fuel stocks. This is held onshore in Australia or within our exclusive economic zone.

That is a very different approach to the approach taken by the previous government, where the stockholding, to the extent that it existed at all, was—like Waco, one of that team's favourite late-night documentaries—held in Texas. That was Mr Taylor's approach—to hold it in Texas.

Our current stocks have not materially changed since the commencement of the conflict: 36 days of petrol, equivalent to about 1.56 billion litres of petrol; 29 days, or 802 million litres, of jet fuel; and 32 days, or about 2.97 billion litres, of diesel. What the industry told Minister Bowen, the minister for agriculture, the minister for transport and me today is that there has been no real change in the stockholdings and the supply that Australia has. There have been some changes in some areas that relate to demand behaviour— (Time expired)