Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

As my colleague the member for Holt has highlighted, Australian families are feeling the pinch of record high petrol prices. But I intend raising issues in this debate that I thought the member for Blair should have raised, given the fact that he comes from the state of Queensland.

Unlike the Howard government, the federal Labor Party believes there is plenty that can be done about petrol prices. The most important thing, and it is interesting that the member for Blair did not touch on it, is the capacity to do something about security of supply and the challenges that confront Australia in the 21st century. That means growing the ethanol and biofuels markets and doing more to develop Australia’s gas and coal to make liquid transport fuels. This is about producing more of our own transport fuels, like ethanol or diesel made out of natural gas or coal.

It will not lower prices at the pump but it will make all of us better off in many other ways. It will mean more jobs, higher exports, more tax revenue from resource development and more money available for income tax relief, roads, better public transport, schools and hospitals. It is only through our domestic supply sources that we will be able to address fuel supply emergencies in the future if the Middle East supply is interrupted and scarcity induces price blow-outs that would threaten our industries, our way of life and our job and export opportunities. It is estimated that our current oil reserves will last only about 40 more years and, while Australia’s prospectivity is lower than that in many other countries, exploration in our remaining frontier areas should be a national priority of the Australian government.

But we need to look further than oil exploration for the total solution, because that is only one part of the challenge. For the best part of the last decade Australia consumed oil three times faster than it added to its reserves, so this is a huge national problem. Conversely, for the last 20 years, Australia has been finding gas faster than it is consuming and exporting it. I believe we could turn that natural gas into products like clean synthetic crude oil and diesel and jet fuel, which are all in demand in Australia. Australia’s competitors in the gas industry are way ahead of us in this area, particularly in the Middle East, where countries such as Qatar already have major gas-to-liquid projects, making ultra-clean diesel for the global market. Why can’t Australia do it?

The same applies to the coal industry. Labor’s climate change blueprint identified clean coal technology as a vital part of the climate change solution and, of course, coal-to-liquids technology is central to the economics and efficiency of a cleaner coal industry.

I point out to the House that it is now four years since CSIRO proposed a strategy for Australia’s transport future, a strategy that recognised gas to liquids and coal to liquids as the key to the future. Four years on, the Howard government yet again has done nothing about securing Australia’s future in the energy debate. It is about transport energy for a country which is dependent on the transport industry. For at least four years CSIRO has known that Australia needs to take action, but the Howard government has done nothing.

Further, it is five years since Senator Minchin, then minister for resources, appointed a task force to investigate the feasibility and benefits of establishing a gas-to-liquids industry in Australia. The task force highlighted the potential significance of a gas-to-liquids industry for Australia’s economy, saying it could underwrite offshore gas supply infrastructure to bring forward the possibility of major new domestic gas pipelines to connect the national market, increase domestic gas competition and energise gas exploration—all key components in Australia’s future—not to mention the most pressing of problems: our future transport fuel security. It is not about self-sufficiency; it is about security of supply. But, five years later, the government is still sitting on its hands hoping the petrol price problem will soon disappear.

I commend the member for Holt for bringing this motion forward for debate in the House. We are all concerned about high petrol prices, but the debate is bigger than the questions of excise and global demand. The debate is about our national government seizing opportunities and working out how we encourage industry by putting in place an investment regime which will force downstream processing in Australia. It is about gas to liquids, not just the export of LNG to China. It is about processing in Australia and creating further jobs. I say to the government: front up to the challenges and stop running away from your responsibilities. (Time expired)

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