Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. And we've just seen the coalition forces annihilated in South Australia. Nothing says insanity like flirting with the party that is actively eating your base—it's like feeding a crocodile and hoping it doesn't bite your hand off—while doing nothing to address the policy challenges that confront us.

It's important for Australians to understand that Australia is well prepared for the challenges of the conflict in the Middle East and our fuel supply is secure. The Albanese government is looking at every practical measure to shield our nation and household budgets from the worst of global insecurity. Since the conflict commenced three weeks ago the Commonwealth government has taken swift action to support supply and keep fuel moving around the country. That includes releasing up to 20 per cent of our diesel and fuel reserves to help address regional shortages. We have amended national fuel standards to keep more Australian made fuels onshore where they are needed most. We are cracking down on petrol company price gouging because we will not allow Australians to be taken advantage of during these periods of global uncertainty.

And to strengthen coordination across the country, the Albanese government has appointed the Fuel Supply Taskforce Coordinator. This is a new and necessary role with shortages in specific areas due to increased demand in some locations and further supply chain pressures expected in the weeks and months ahead. This task force will lead the coordination work needed to ensure the best outcomes for Australians and Australian businesses.

But let's compare this to the actions or the absolute inaction of those opposite. Opposition leader Angus Taylor should be, and will be, remembered as the worst energy minister in Australian history. Under Angus Taylor's watch, half of Australia's remaining refineries closed. He left Australia more exposed to global shocks than at any time in modern history, and now the coalition has the audacity to come in here and lecture us about fuel supply when it was their decisions that hollowed out our sovereign fuel capacity in the first place.

I'm proud to say that Queensland is home to one of Australia's two remaining oil refineries—one of only two that survived the Liberals last time they were in office—and that is the Ampol refinery in Lytton, in the mighty seat of Bonner in Brisbane. There are more than 550 refinery workers at Ampol, producing petrol, diesel and jet fuel in Queensland. Behind every bowser filling up our cars, our trucks and our machinery, there is a Queensland Ampol worker who has been working around the clock to keep up with current peaks in demand, and they are ably supported by our Queensland transport workers, who have been delivering tanker after tanker right up and down the eastern seaboard. Queensland's oil refinery workers and transport workers don't always get the recognition they deserve, but right now their work is critical to keeping sovereign oil production steady during this period of peak demand.

So I want to give a shout-out to the mighty Australian Workers' Union, which proudly represents the workers of Ampol, because it is the AWU that has worked hard to defend the fuel industry against sustained attacks and the oil refinery closures that occurred under the coalition. The AWU and this side of politics have been vocal about the need to ensure that we keep an oil refinery operating in this country. So you can imagine my surprise when we've seen a conga line of coalition MPs and senators lining up to attack this industry in recent weeks—the same people who said nothing when the refineries were shut. They didn't blink an eye when refineries were shut at Kurnell in New South Wales, Bulwer Island in Queensland, Altona in Victoria and Kwinana in WA. It was the AWU who came to Canberra back in 2020 to save our refinery in Lytton. We should never forget that.