Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to follow the honourable member for Shortland in the debate on this important bill, the Fuel Tax (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2006. It provides a single system of fuel tax credits to remove or reduce the incidence of fuel tax levied on taxable fuels. It produces a framework for taxation of gaseous fuels from 1 July 2011, when fuel tax will be, for the first time, levied on liquid petroleum gas, liquid natural gas and compressed natural gas. Under the tax credit system, all taxable fuels that are acquired, manufactured or imported for business purposes will become tax free. The excise levied on burner fuels, such as kerosene, heating oil and fuels used in commercial electricity generation, will be removed from 1 July 2006. Concessions, refunds and remissions derived through the excise will be replaced by fuel credits. A business claiming more than $3 million will be required to become a member of the Greenhouse Challenge Plus program, and fuel tax credits are claimed via the BAS or business activity statement.

In the words of the Prime Minister, the price of petrol is a real barbecue stopper. It does not matter whether you are out in the bush, in a regional city or town, in a capital city or in the western suburbs of Sydney like me—people are feeling the high cost of fuel. They have to pay an extraordinary amount of money to fill up the family car, and that is hurting their budgets. It is quite trite of the Prime Minister to say, ‘It is all because of the world high price of petroleum.’

We have missed a lot of opportunities in Australia. I notice the honourable member for Corio is at the table for the opposition, and I am sure he would agree with me that Australia did a lot to develop solar energy but we have done little to commercialise and take advantage of it. It is a real tragedy. It is very symptomatic of Australia that we can be so good in research and development but not so good on commercialisation and exports. Of course, policies introduced by the Howard government have not helped in that regard. The leader has announced that Australia needs to develop existing technology: liquid petroleum gas, ethanol and biodiesel; developing technology—that is, ‘Let’s get in there quick’: compressed natural gas, liquid fuel from gas and stored electricity; and future technology: hydrogen.

I have had a longstanding interest in ethanol. It stems from the time, too many years ago, when I was reading a Newsweek magazine, which used to be imported into this country; it has subsequently disappeared. It talked about what Brazil was doing with ethanol. Brazil has, for many decades now, produced ethanol from sugarcane. It is by far the cheapest provider of ethanol in the world. Brazil not only uses it in petroleum in vehicles but also exports it.

We have a real problem in Australia. Currently, we provide in Australia, on a declining basis, 63 per cent of our own petroleum supplies. It has been estimated that within 10 years we will be dependent on 78 per cent of imports of petroleum. Currently we are 63 per cent self-sufficient; in 10 years, it has been estimated, that could decline by as much as 22 per cent—that is, we will need to import 78 per cent of all our requirements in the next 10 years.

This is having a horrendous impact on our current account deficit. I have no need to tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that for 49 months Australia, one of the resource-rich countries of the world, in the middle of a resources boom, has produced 49 consecutive current account deficits. We need to do something. I feel we need to do something not only about the framework that has been outlined but about ethanol. We need to do something about extending our own self-sufficiency.

I know that there is a view in this parliament that all you have to do is leave it to the petrol companies and—by some process of serendipity or the road to Damascus—they will suddenly want to do the right thing by looking at biofuels, by looking at ethanol. Should they do that, it will be a first. Let us be under no illusions. In America, the very same petrol companies which in Australia deny us ethanol in our petrol are providing it and bragging about it.

There will always be debates on the Labor side about the right thing to do and the best way to go. I make no apologies for believing that we should be mandating ethanol. We cannot leave it to the petrol companies to do the right thing by the people of Australia. We cannot leave it to the petrol companies to try and solve our own self-sufficiency problems, with a rapidly declining basis of petroleum in this country. We cannot leave it to the petrol companies to make a significant impact on our current account deficit. As I say, I believe that we need to mandate ethanol.

Lots of figures have been bandied around about mandating. Of course, if you were to start mandating ethanol, you would obviously want to start ramping it up—that is, initially you would set a target of, say, 2.5 per cent and ramp it up to five, 7.5 and 10 per cent. If we were to do that, we would make a big impact on our current account deficit, and we would also make an impact on our own self-sufficiency. I have some figures here. For example, 2.5 per cent would add another four per cent in terms of the replacement value; five per cent would mean eight per cent; 7.5 per cent, 12 per cent; and 10 per cent, 17 per cent. We ought to be doing these things. We ought to be looking at them. This parliament ought to be having a debate.

It is true that I have been down to the Manildra plant where ethanol is produced as a by-product of wheat processing. It is also true that I have been pleased to meet Dick Honan and his family. I do not know what Dick Honan’s family’s politics are. I do not think it particularly matters or should be important. I can say that they are a great Australian family who have pioneered ethanol. But, in mandating ethanol, we would not be providing any monopoly to Manildra. In fact, if we were to mandate ethanol, we would be not only guaranteeing a future for ethanol in this country but ensuring that future plants would be constructed in rural Australia. That would be providing jobs in rural and regional Australia, adding to the economy of rural and regional Australia and, as I say, helping the current account deficit problem that we have—that is, starting to minimise it—as well as starting to address our issues of self-sufficiency.

There is one thing that you can be sure of, because the government has asked for a departmental report into this from the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources. The minister for industry is an opponent of ethanol. He has not really ever supported it appropriately. In fact, I know that the National Party members, whilst they are very keen to see ethanol mandated, know that they cannot get it through this government. They know what the benefits are to rural and regional Australia. They know what the benefits would be to the state of Queensland. But they cannot get it up within the coalition.

On our side of politics, these things are worth while looking at. I see that the honourable member for Prospect is in the House ready to make a contribution. He will know that one of the urgency motions considered at the New South Wales state conference of the Labor Party was the issue of mandating ethanol. That motion sought the intervention of the Premier of New South Wales and the New South Wales Labor government. I must say that I fully support it.

As we search for solutions for the future, I would discount none of the new, emerging technologies, but I do say that we have an opportunity with ethanol. This has been around for not one or two years but decades. It is to our shame, in my view, that the use of ethanol is not at 7.5 per cent or at 10 per cent. I believe that you cannot trust the petrol companies. At the end of the day, the real solution is to mandate it. If the New South Wales state Labor government lead the way, that is terrific. I know that their Country Labor members would be very strongly supportive of it. I hope that, at a federal level, we would look at mandating it. We would look at doing something very serious for the desperate situation where currently we are 63 per cent self-sufficient but within 10 years we will be importing 78 per cent of our petroleum needs. We cannot do nothing—that is not an option.

I will finish on a couple of points. It is an absolute tragedy that the ACCC does not have full power to ensure that the petrol companies are not price gouging. On this side of the House we support the ACCC getting it. Whether or not the chairman of the ACCC wants it, we believe that he should have it and therefore should be required to exercise it. On the government side—that is, on the side of the Liberal and National parties—they say, ‘We’re very content with the status quo. We don’t mind petrol going up 9c or 10c before a long weekend or that there are price variations depending on what day of the week you fill up your car at the petrol bowser; that is just a normal matter in the marketing of petrol.’ It is interesting that, no matter what the brand, all the service stations do the same things on the same day. John Howard says that it is not a problem, Peter Costello says that it is not a problem and the backbenchers on the coalition side say that it is not a problem. I have never heard the member for Greenway get up and talk about this issue which hurts Western Sydney. I have never heard the member for Lindsay get up and say that this is a problem and that we need to give the ACCC—

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