Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's always interesting to hear from Senator McGrath and get yet another of the opposition's logical inconsistencies on the public record. On the one hand he calls out the Albanese Labor government to outline how it will ensure that fuel is delivered to Australians where it's needed. With that bit, absolutely, I agree. Then he goes on to call for the government to rule out heavy-handed mandates. I get the message, Senator McGrath. It's: do something, but, whatever you do, don't do anything. It's a totally confused message, and that's what we're getting consistently from those on the opposite side. We know why the LNP is sitting over there and why this government is on the Treasury benches. It's because we are a government that will responsibly, carefully and logically get things done. Australians know that the global circumstances that we're dealing with are really pressing hard on every single economy across the world and pressing hard on the delivery of the fuels that we have always expected would flow. There is an unprecedented conflict in the Middle East. It's absolutely pushing up prices everywhere around the world. Here, in Australia, that's putting pressure on families, on farmers and on small and large businesses. When you go to the servo to fill up and they're out of fuel, of course that can be really, really worrying, and that's why our government is hearing from Australians, accepting the reality and getting on with taking careful and necessary action calmly and methodically to get the fuel we need restocked as soon as possible, and when that fuel gets here, to get it to where it needs to go.

Now, despite a stable national fuel supply, we know that the global price pressure and the doubling of demand in some areas has seen parts of the regional fuel market—the spot market in particular—come under significant strain. It's had an unacceptable impact particularly on regional customers, who source their fuel this way as the most common way. This is especially affecting farmers. That's why we're working collaboratively and practically with the states and the territories to fix these supply chains and get the fuel where it needs to be. Now, we've undertaken this task carefully. We've introduced legislation that is really vital to making sure that we underwrite additional fuel cargoes and other vital strategic reserves that will help to acquire additional supply. We've got more fuel, and diesel in particular, into the Australian market by temporarily amending the fuel standards to help respond to the reality that Australians are facing. We've released 20 per cent of the baseline minimum stockholding obligation for petrol and diesel, which has further boosted fuel supply.

In New South Wales, my home state, we are working together with the state government to deal with the realities of significant additional demand. At Newcastle terminal, as one example, diesel sale volumes have been up to 36 per cent more than was forecast during March. The state government of New South Wales has announced it will require major fuel companies to provide information on their plans for supplying the additional fuel that's needed, particularly to regional communities, and the state government will establish a liquid fuel emergency operations centre to track any shortages, to coordinate fuel direction and to forecast future supply needs.

There's evidence that this minimum stockholding obligation release is already beginning to flow into regional communities. One company's sales to independent distributors that supply regional and rural areas is up to 33 per cent of the normal average monthly volume after only 25 days of sales. In the Central West and south-west of the state, an extra 1,200 kilolitres of diesel is flowing to agricultural and regional independent retail networks. There's an extra 400 kilolitres heading to the Dubbo region to fill bulk tanks. At a national level, the legislative changes that will be coming to this place in just a couple of hours, relating to the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Act, will bring the deal-making expertise of Export Finance Australia to the challenge to make sure we can enable the purchase of cargoes and support those companies to continue to address the supply shortages.