Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy, quite rightly, says that in his view that is the track. We need the capacity for transparency. If we are talking about the Trade Practices Act and transparency in the pricing and other behaviour of major corporations, including fuel companies, and all their international connections, surely we must look in our own backyard—at who is paying the piper. The ethanol debate is a classic example. It is a shame that the minister has been caught up in this, but there is absolutely no doubt that the fuel companies are calling the tune.

We traditionally follow the United States in nearly everything we do. The United States has recognised that its population cannot be reliant long term on the Middle East and others for the provision of energy, and it is starting to address those issues through renewable energy and other activities. The United States is invading the marketplace and putting in place policy that actually drives the energy debate, rather than—as we would do; as we are doing now—allowing the fuel companies, which are international corporations, to drive the debate for it. I think that is a great failing on the part of this government.

The LPG business the other day—and it is a bit like the way you cannot criticise your mother—is not going to do much good. I think everybody recognises that. Even if, at the end of the day, people did accept that the government would not change the taxation regime in the future, that the fuel companies were all going to play a straight game and not gouge the price and that the fitters of the additional equipment, the cylinders et cetera, would not profiteer on the way through, there is a whole range of uncertainties there.

The consumer, the customer, has seen the government put in place in 2001 a renewable energy policy, some mandatory renewable energy targets for renewable fuels. Six years later, we are producing less than we were when we started the policy. To the Labor Party’s shame, too, I notice in their second reading amendment that they are still talking about 350,000 megalitres—less than one per cent of the fuel needs of the nation. The rest of the world is marching on, and we are still playing games with old numbers from 2001: 350,000 megalitres of renewable energy. I think the member for Kennedy mentioned in a speech the other night—a very good speech too, I thought—that we are at about 30,000. There is no way that even the targets that the Prime Minister set out during his cup of coffee with the fuel companies last year have been achieved. They were supposed to be achieved by the end of June or July, I think it was. There is no way that the 2006 targets have been achieved.

It is obvious to anybody in the marketplace that the fuel companies in this country are not going to make any significant changes on renewable energy, ethanol and these other products unless there is a mandate such that it opens up the process of distribution through the bowsers. There is no way that those companies are going to do that. Take a look at America and see what they have done in the States. They recognise that at a policy level. They are agripoliticians, they are state and federal politicians, and they put in place mandates which forced the fuel companies to accept the product and start to market it through the normal processing chain, for a whole range of health, environmental and other reasons. They have had an enormous impact on the agricultural sector and the renewable energy sector. The fuel companies now embrace it in the States. The car companies now embrace it. We could do the same. (Time expired)

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