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

We are in the midst of a global oil shock that is not of our making. It is having wide-reaching impacts right through our economy. The people it's perhaps hurting the greatest are those in regional communities, in our industries—particular mining and agriculture—and in logistics companies. We have adopted a multifaceted response which is targeting supply, distribution and, of course—announced through National Cabinet—price.

I'll go to price first, because price is perhaps what most Australian motorists and industries are most sensitive to. Today, through National Cabinet, the Prime Minister announced that we will be halving the fuel excise, so roughly 26c will be coming off the price of fuel at the bowser. In addition to that, we are suspending for a period of three months, along with the fuel excise, the heavy-vehicle road user charge. This will give companies, particularly our logistics and transport companies, the kind of breathing space that they need right now. It will release some of the pressure in the system. In terms of supply, we released 20 per cent of our fuel reserves—reserves that are now positioned right here in Australia, not in Louisiana and Texas, which are where they were under the previous government—and that fuel has been prioritised for regional Australia, for regional communities, for our primary producers, for our miners and for our big and small industries that are positioned in regional Australia. We also changed our fuel standards to ensure that we can supply a greater amount of diesel and petrol, refined in Australia, to the Australian domestic market. So we're not exporting any fuel; we are retaining it right here in Australia. We have doubled the penalty that can be imposed by the ACCC for price gouging from $50 million to $100 million. We've also appointed a fuel tsar; Ms Anthea Harris has been appointed to help coordinate this national response. In addition to that, we have put aside $2 million for financial counselling to help, particularly, our farmers during this difficult time.

The most important thing, though, is that the Prime Minister has emphasised from the very beginning that he wants a nationally consistent approach, because, obviously, our economy relies on fuel to move goods and services around. We do not want to return to the days of COVID, when there was a confused, fairly incoherent response throughout the country. That only exacerbated the pressure and stress on ordinary Australians and businesses.

But this is not all we're doing. These are some temporary measures that I've talked about, but we also need to look into the long term, into the future, as to how we make Australia more energy resilient, and that means that we need, as much as possible, to decouple ourselves from the crazy volatility of Middle Eastern oil. To that end, we are pumping $1.1 billion into developing cleaner liquid fuels, low-carbon fuels, like sustainable aviation fuel, synthetic fuels and biodiesel. These will be developed through products that are grown right here in Australia by our farmers. Our farmers and our regions will be the beneficiaries. We will be using canola and sorghum and sugarcane as well as tallow. These are waste products which can be repurposed and redeveloped into low-carbon fuels. But that's not all we're doing. As of today, along with previous announcements, we have announced $25 million from ARENA that will be going towards developing heavy trucking electrification. That money is being put into three hubs in Victoria. Just this morning, I had the privilege of seeing an electric prime mover roll into Parliament House. It was parked outside the front.