Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There hasn't been a crisis that those opposite haven't been willing to exploit. They do this each and every time. It is part of their brand to basically whip up fear—extremist fearmongering. Here we are in the midst of an international oil shock, worse than we had a few years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine, and those opposite should be uniting. Instead, they are stoking fear, and that is leading to panic buying, which in turn is resulting in localised shortages of fuel. And the communities who are hardest hit are those in the regions, particularly our farmers and our fishers and regional industries and businesses, the very people that those opposite, particularly Senator Cadell from the Nationals, claim to represent but are actually hurting.

Now, we as a government are taking this seriously and we are doing a power of work in the background to ensure that Australia remains fuel secure. And we are fuel secure. There have been no problems with industry fulfilling its contractual obligations. But what we need right now are cool heads. Andrew McKellar from ACCI, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said:

I think the message from businesses, obviously there is a concern about the risks, but I think for the moment, cool heads have got to prevail. Certainly there's no cause for panic.

There's no cause for panic. That's from ACCI—a true leader, not like those opposite.

From our perspective, we have no problems with consistency of supply. Australia has fuel onshore, held in Brisbane and Geelong. This is in contrast to the time the coalition were in government, when our fuel reserves were held in Texas and Louisiana. We also have two functioning refineries. Under those opposite, four of those six refineries closed down, but these two refineries are going full bore, and today the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, asked one of those refineries to release more fuel into the Australian domestic market—to the tune of around 100 million litres. This fuel will be less refined than usual, but, given the state of the shortages, we feel this is an important step to take. The additional fuel supply will be directed to those parts of Australia that are hurting the most, particularly our regional communities. Some of it will also flow into the spot market to support independent retailers, often in thin markets.

In addition to this, our Foreign minister has spoken with the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia to ensure that we continue to support Saudi Arabia and maintain our fuel supply chains. We have tasked the ACCC with additional powers to ensure that Australian motorists are not price-gouged at the bowser, with stiff penalties—in the order of $100 million—if people misbehave. We have increased our minimum stock obligation, which is basically a backstop, and we've also activated our national coordination mechanism, to ensure that we have all the smart brains in this country around the table to keep our economy going.

We have a power of work going on in the background to diversify our energy grid. Australia is predominantly a fossil fuel nation. Like the rest of the world, we are reliant on fossil fuels to run our economy, but a shift is occurring. Through our Future Made in Australia agenda, we have poured $1.1 billion into stimulating low-carbon fuels. Low-carbon fuels are things like biodiesel and e-fuels, and they'll play a really important role, going into the future, as sustainable aviation fuels. They are derived from products that our farmers grow—sorghum, sugar cane and canola—and waste products, like tallow.

In addition to that, we are electrifying our transport grid. We are seeing the uptake of electric vehicles. In the last week there's been a surge in the number of people searching for electric vehicles, particularly on the second-hand market. That has happened thanks to the incentives we put in place to make these cars more affordable for Australians. (Time expired)