Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

We heard in question time today—and I like to throw in quotes with things—a quote that's sometimes attributed to Napoleon and sometimes to Omar Bradley, which says, 'Amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics.' We are seeing that this government is an amateur when it comes to national crises. We are seeing that it is an amateur when it comes to planning for the future, because it is not planning logistics; it is talking about tactics.

This is what we're seeing. We're seeing the amateurs in charge of a response to help Australia's fuel situation. We're hearing about the Strait of Hormuz and we're hearing about the Ukrainian gas problem. We're hearing about these things as well. I tell you, we are not seeing Putin on the Bruce Highway. We are not seeing the IRGC on the M1. We are not seeing the mullahs on the Hume Highway. What we are seeing is a failure to get the fuel from where the government tells us it is to where it is needed. That is the real challenge we are facing here.

When we are seeing service stations in regional areas run out, such as the one in Western Australia we were told about by Senator O'Sullivan today, we are seeing that these things are not working out there. What are we doing? We hear about the tactics used by this government to fix it. We hear them say, 'The ACCC will fix it; we're giving them extra powers and penalties.' The ACCC can't look into price gouging. They can't look into this thing that is happening out there in the service stations in the states. They can't look into big oil and the way they put that out around the world. When we're talking about the tactics of releasing 100 million litres a month—let's get down to it—that is less than one litre per person per week. Those are the big steps we are taking on this.

It is not about the Strait of Hormuz and what happens there, because they keep saying that we have more oil in the country than we had at the beginning of this. If that is true, how come the service stations can't sell it? How come the big enterprises of the world can't get the urea to make the glue that goes into kitchen cabinets, pine board and particle board? How come we are not getting the diesel on farms that they sell? The big guys are now supplying. There used to be little wholesalers in the spot market, but they're not selling to people anymore, because the big boys say: 'I've got my fuel, and I'm going to come there. I'm going to use my market dominance in this area.' Then they come out and say, 'Your tank's not compliant; I'm not going to fill you up,' or 'This is not underground.' They give any reason in the world.

I'll go to my home, in the Hunter. I know an operator there who felt he got ripped off a couple of weeks ago because he had to prepay for three weeks of fuel at $2.30 a litre, and that was 200,000 bucks. He's now feeling he won the lotto because it's $3.50. He's in the market buying more, and this is what we're seeing. We're seeing a fuel system and logistics system break down, and the government have powers to deal with this. There is section 11, and we have all of these national powers. What is worse is the ABC reports that the government ran a simulation through NEMA, the National Emergency Management Agency, last year on what they would do in this situation. This is them at their best, with recent practice—them after having an exercise on what they would if this happened. God help everyone out there if they hadn't done that! Imagine what would be happening now.

What we heard was no guarantees to two simple questions. They were asked: 'Can you guarantee we won't run out of fuel?' No guarantee came. They were asked: 'Can you guarantee there will be no rationing?' No guarantee came. This is why we know the amateurs are in charge of this response. All we hear about is the global shocks. You can't have it both ways. You can't have more stock in the country now than there ever has been and have less fuel in service stations and say 'We are in control.' Those things are not compatible, and that is how we're going forward. When we leave here, forget the tactics and forget the politics. Get to the logistics, and keep Australia moving.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've all in this chamber spent this week listening to the collective of the Greens over there, who are implying Australia started the war in Iran, and our friends across the chamber from the coalition, who are very busy being very loud, wound up and very excited.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, please.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There we are. Senator McKenzie is proving my point—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, I remind you and others in the chamber that it is disorderly to interject.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could all stand in here and shout at each other, but I'm not sure what that really achieves, given we've been at it for four days. There is a situation in the world, a global challenge, that is impacting Australia. Unlike the assertions of the Greens, particularly of Senator McKim, Australia did not start the war in Iran. Australia is not part of the core challenges in the Middle East. Those challenges have been around for a very long time. But what we do know is that those things impact Australia. It is very easy to go, 'You should stop the war.' Newsflash, people—that's not something the government of this country, regardless of who is in government, has the power to do; I'm sorry to upset your hysterical narrative, but it's just not.

When we come to the issue at hand here of what's happening on the ground in Australia, what I can tell you is that I know people on the ground are hurting right now. They're driving past petrol stations, looking at the price and thinking: 'How on earth do I afford a tank of petrol ongoing? How long is this going to last?' They're looking at the situation in some of those regional areas where people pull up and there isn't any petrol. That is not widespread, but it is happening. What this government has done is look at all the levers it can pull to make a difference, to get as much of the fuel supplies that are needed to the places that need them. Do we know that people are running out of petrol in some areas? Yes, we do. Is the work ongoing to try and make sure everybody has what they need? Yes, it is.

This little red bubble in here shouting and carrying on like pork chops isn't necessarily helping, because you're terrifying the living daylights out of people—that they're never going to get another drop of petrol.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're already terrified at your lack of capacity.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, you're not helping.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie cannot help herself. Senator McKenzie has to keep shouting and carrying on. It's four minutes. You can 'not talk' for four minutes. It's not that hard.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Grogan, return to your comments, please. I remind senators that interjecting is disorderly, and it's not helpful.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are working very closely with all of the people we can to pull all of the levers we can to ameliorate the impact of these global challenges. These are supply challenges that we can't influence at source, but we are doing everything we can to influence them everywhere along the supply chain. We are making moves to ensure that price gouging is dealt with. We cannot have companies of any sort out there making a buck out of the challenges for people on the ground in Australia. This government is doing everything we can to make a difference to Australians on the ground when we are faced with what is a global challenge. We cannot control global events, but we can control how we respond to them.

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Outside of here, in the real world where real people live, outside this place, ports are telling us right now that trade could grind to a halt. Apprentices—young people who have been going to work—have been stood down from their jobs. Primary producers, including vegetable growers, are reducing production as they consider if they can even get to their crops or their animals. Can they even get that produce and their commodities to market without going broke? These are decisions of real people—real people like rural doctors, who are having meetings about how they're going to get to their patients and how many may be untreated.

It is this government that's allowed this fuel crisis to escalate to the point where it is now disrupting trade, jobs, fuel supply, health services and frontline operations right across Australia. The reality is that Minister Bowen is a part-time energy minister in what is a national crisis. He is asleep at the wheel. This government is outsourcing responsibility right now to a fuel coordinator, instead of being fully focused on fixing the problem. I would have thought that the only thing that each and every one of the government ministers—these government ministers across here—would be doing right now is working out how each Australian is going to be affected in every portfolio, in every electorate, by this mess. It's impacting aged care, agriculture, Indigenous Australians in remote communities, volunteers who do incredible work in our communities, the transport industry and every type of small business.

This government has a problem not only with finding solutions but also with communicating what it is doing to the Australian public. It is the government itself that has fuelled confusion and anxiety, not right-wing extremists, as they claim. My colleagues and I have been raising this for weeks, demanding attention to this obvious risk. Demanding answers in this place does not make us—or me—right-wing extremists.

This government has sought to cover up its incompetence by seeking to blame everyone else. One of the reasons it's doing this is that it hasn't found a solution. It's hard to believe that, with all the resources at its disposal, all the intelligence it's got at hand and the fact that it's been in charge for four years, it still seeks to blame everybody else. It should be unbelievable, but it's actually true. And now it's failing to tell the Australian people how it will work its way through this. It's still 'looking at the levers', we just heard. Well, we want you to pull them. Sure, there is conflict in the Middle East, blocking a supply route, but the economy was already in trouble. This has just made a bad situation much worse. Remember, just a few weeks ago, you were pretending there were no supply issues, even though people, including me, were pulling up to bowsers that said, 'Not in use.' That should tell you that there's a supply issue.

Now the government is telling us to work from home. In fact, the International Energy Agency, which was here only this week, has a list of recommendations: work from home, reduce highway speed limits, encourage public transport, get a carpool, use an EV, divert LPG, avoid air travel, and switch to other modern cooking solutions. But do you know what should have been the No. 1 recommendation, when they spoke this week in this very place? This Labor government needs to get on with it and stop blaming everyone else.

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

Recent global conflict and shipping disruptions have shown us just how fragile our fuel supply chain can be. We know Australia imports the vast majority of its fuel from overseas, and that is a vulnerability that we simply cannot ignore. I will get to just how we got into that position shortly.

In my home state of Queensland we operate one of Australia's two only refineries, the Ampol refinery in Lytton, home to more than 550 refinery workers. They have been working around the clock to keep up with the current peak in demand. So we thank them for their hard work at this critical time. And supporting the work of our refinery workers are Queensland's hardworking truck drivers and transport operators. Our transport operators have been delivering tanker after tanker of fuel across the country. They have also been feeling the pinch of the spike in demand for fuel.

This government has taken action to help our trucking industry manage the impacts of the Iranian conflict. The government will amend the Fair Work Act to allow truckies and road transport businesses to make an emergency application for an order to deal with the current spike in fuel prices.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, a point of order?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could I draw your attention to the question before the chair. This is to take note of answers. The government's solutions bore no—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, we know this is a wide-ranging debate, considering that—

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She's referring to legislation that—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

we're taking note of all coalition questions. Please resume your seat. Senator Mulholland, please continue.

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

I do note that the question from Senator Liddle was, how did the government allow this crisis to escalate? And we're exactly talking about how we got to that position. The actions, or the inactions, while Senator McKenzie was sitting on the frontbench of the last government is exactly how we got here. Rather than going around in trucks and pretending to be a truck driver, we are doing something about this industry, and we are putting through legislation to protect this industry at this critical time.

So I want to acknowledge the efforts of the Transport Workers' Union on this important issue. We must remember that it is the union movement that has always defended our sovereign fuel capacity in this nation. And we know it is the Australian Workers Union that has always come to this capital city to defend our local refineries, particularly the Lytton refinery. It took the AWU, back in 2020, coming to Canberra to save our Lytton refinery, which was going to shut under the Morrison government. Do you remember those guys? Yeah, we do. This is the same coalition that bowls into question time and tries to rewrite history about their legacy with our sovereign fuel capacity—which is ironic, given that Senator Cadell comes into this place and waxes lyrical, quoting Napolean.

These are the same characters who said nothing when six of our eight refineries closed in this country—six of our eight refineries, gone under the last coalition government—thousands of Australian jobs in industry gone under their watch. That is 75 per cent of our refineries shut under the coalition. Many of those opposite were sitting on the frontbench at that time, and they didn't say a word. They sat by and watched our refineries shut, one after the other: in Queensland, in Western Australia, in Victoria and in New South Wales—all of them gone, just like the car industry, gone under the coalition. This is a coalition who wants to talk a big game about sovereign capability in manufacturing and our critical industries, but their legacy was killing off our car industry and shutting our refineries.

Just yesterday the Nationals were in here talking down efforts to protect our smelters. They came into this place yesterday mocking the deal the government has done with the Queensland government to protect the Boyne aluminium smelter in Central Queensland. More than 3,000 jobs are sustained at that one smelter alone, and they couldn't care less. They mocked it. They mocked those jobs in Central Queensland. That's their legacy.

Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I tell you what, talk about looking in the rear-view mirror. This is the government right here right now. What are they doing?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's right.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, you interjected on those on the opposite side. Can you please not interject on your own senator.

Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Acting Deputy President Polley, but I encourage Senator McKenzie to interject.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's disorderly—

Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Collins, I asked you to resume your seat. I am in the chair at the moment, and it is not helpful when you encourage your colleague, because it is disorderly.

Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me explain myself a little more fully. I think we need more senators in this place that are shouting to the rooftops about this issue. There are Australian families out there, Australian farmers and now people in the cities that don't have access to fuel. It is not just a problem for this week; it is a problem for next week, it's a problem for next month and the wintertime and the summertime when all of those farmers that haven't been able to sow their seed and that have no crops will end up in a very dire straight indeed. And so, yes, I encourage people to stand in here and scream and yell about this problem. I tell you what, we are not getting any answers from this government about what they're going to do.

We have heard from Senator Ayres, and I'm glad he's in the chamber here today to hear this—we have heard from Senator Ayres, for the past two weeks, that, firstly, it's not a problem; secondly, it's a problem with the Australian people filling up their jerry cans; and, thirdly, they don't have any plan at all to deal with that. There is no guarantee about what they are going to do about this rationing, there is no guarantee about what they're going to do about the distribution, and there is no guarantee about what they are going to do about the rising prices. It is a problem for all of us.

We have heard from our senators in the opposition today that the waste industry is not on the priority fuel list. What's going to happen when supermarkets and aged care don't get their waste collected? Who's going to pick it up? It is going to be a public health catastrophe. We have an economic catastrophe. We have a public health catastrophe. We have ports that are potentially going to grind to a halt. Vegetable growers are reducing their production. A quarter of the growers have said that they will reduce or stop their planting. Just have a think about what that's going to do for your Coles shelves and the Woolies shelves when you go and buy your apples and bananas for your school lunches. We have a government that has its head in the sand on this issue. There is no plan for any of this. They stand there, and they look in the rear-view mirror, and they point at the failures of previous governments. It is their job now to be dealing with this issue.

We need communication with the Australian people. They don't need to be told that this is right-wing scaremongering, disinformation or misinformation. They just want to feel secure. They want to be able to plan. They want to be able to go away on holidays. They want to be able to know that, when they cross the Nullarbor, they're going to have somewhere to fill up their car and the kids in the back won't be stranded in the heat. This is what we have. We have a government that has lost control. They've lost control of the Australian security, of the budget and of themselves.

Question agreed to.