Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was a very good and thoughtful speech by the member for New England, as always, in looking at alternatives for this country. We live in a time of volatile fuel prices due to some of the turmoil in the Middle East, the difficulties in Nigeria, the diminishing supplies in other areas, a lack of further oil discoveries in Australia and a lack of government response to help stimulate more exploration. A committee that I sat on in this parliament, the Standing Committee on Industry and Resources, made a recommendation for flow-through shares, which is an opportunity for small companies to raise money for exploration. In Canada it was a very successful model which allowed their smaller companies to get involved in more exploration. We have had none of that here. Some of the government members on that committee certainly lobbied for it, but of course it has not been taken up.

The Prime Minister’s paper was very poor and there were very few ideas in it. There were a lot of words but no initiatives of note. This all comes at a time when the economy is beginning to show signs of slowing down. The Prime Minister does not want to recognise that and he always has a contrary view. This government is really not looking at the burden that the price of fuel is putting on many Australians. The Prime Minister’s paper stated that the most important thing was the high demand coming from developing countries like China and India—that they were putting enormous pressure on the supply of oil—and that events such as Hurricane Katrina and the shutdown of the pipeline in Alaska limited the amount of oil coming from the United States. That leaves Australia with a problem. Because we have very little capacity to control petrol prices, that has left us at the sway of market forces, and that is happening now.

Fortunately, many of the constituents that we look after have a lot more understanding of their own concerns than this government does. They are feeling those increased prices—fuel prices are hurting them in their back pocket. People are saying that we in the parliament and the government in general should be sorting out the energy needs of the country by looking for alternatives, providing alternatives and encouraging alternatives. Instead, we continue to be beholden to outside powers for the supply of our fuel.

The population of this great country, Australia, is so scattered and widely dispersed that the cost of fuel has a huge impact on the daily lives of many people, but they have few alternatives. In my electorate, for instance, even if people wanted to ride a bike, they would have to ride a very long way in some areas to do what they wanted to do. They have to use a car. Many people have to drive their cars a long way to get to work, and fuel is an extra cost that they have to meet out of their weekly income.

For many people, travelling is a basic necessity; it is part of their day-to-day activities. People in remote and regional communities have enormous energy problems. In many areas of Australia, people rely on diesel not only for transport but also for power generation. Most areas of Australia do not have good, renewable hydro-electric energy to use as we do in Tasmania. We have also had good opportunities to use wind power; hydro-electricity and wind can cut in and out very easily. When the Prime Minister arrived in Northern Tasmania recently, the closure of the windmill factory at Wynyard, which is just on the other side of Burnie, was announced and 65 jobs were lost. This occurred because the government has not considered giving the opportunities to wind power that it should.

When we think about it, there are many roads that we can go down to look for alternatives. There are many alternatives being developed. In Tasmania, one of our universities is undertaking research into hydrogen engines. This will be a vital bit of research for our transport future. There are many roads that we could go down in our search for alternatives to petrol and diesel. We could consider ethanol, not just as an addition to fuel but in its own right. There is also natural gas, propane, hydrogen, biodiesel, electricity, methanol and p-series fuel. P-series fuel is a family of renewable non-petroleum liquid fuels that can be substituted for gasoline. They are a blend of 25 or so domestically produced ingredients. About 35 per cent of p-series fuel comes from light by-products known as C5-plus or pentane-plus, which are left over when natural gas is processed for transport and marketing. It is composed of about 45 per cent ethanol fermented from corn and 20 per cent MeTHF, which is derived from lignocellulose biomass, paper sludge, paper waste, food waste, yard and wood waste or agricultural waste. There are enormous opportunities for us to use these wastes and turn them into fuels. This is where we should be spending some money.

So there are many opportunities that we can pursue and could have pursued earlier if this government had been a bit more proactive and had seen what would happen if we hit out at the biggest source of our fuel—the Middle East and, in particular, Iraq. The US thought they could get something for nothing when they instigated all this and now we are hearing the lies that we have been supporting and the hypocrisy that has been evident to cover it all up. It has also been about oil. It has always been about oil. All the funds we have pursued with this war in Iraq could have been better spent in investigating alternative fuels and alternative machines to run with alternative fuels.

The Labor Party has been a strong supporter of alternative energy development, including biofuels. The use of ethanol in the Commonwealth government’s fleet has already been brought on. Labor governments in New South Wales and Queensland have also already introduced its use and are providing incentives for people to change. Now we have the government leaping into producing thousands of dollars of incentives for people to change their cars over to LPG. What the government has not said is that the cost is going to be a lot more than that which is being allowed for through these grants. It is going to cost people considerably more—probably double what can be claimed for.

The government also did not mention that there are very few people who can actually undertake the work. We are not very skilled up in this area and we will need to skill people up before people can get this conversion work done. I tried to get someone to quote on converting one of my family cars and I was told that there was no-one available to quote and that 2007 was probably when the conversion could be done. So we have a long way to go and I am sure a lot of people are going to have to wait a long time to get their car converted to LPG. There are about five or six outlets in Tasmania—Launceston, Hobart and three in my electorate on the east coast. I do not know if there are any on our west coast. There are none up the middle. So there are a lot of issues that you have to plan quite thoroughly if you do intend to convert. I do not think we should hold our breath that we will get assistance and that this paper announced by the Prime Minister’s will be a great initiative.

The PM has also recommended that there be capital funds to support new biofuel production capacity. I do not dispute that that will be a very good idea, but it is a bit late to be doing it. Labor has been talking about alternative fuels for many years now. It was the Keating government that introduced an 18c a litre production bounty for ethanol in the 1993-94 budget, in addition to zero excise weighting for the product. It was the Howard government that abolished that bounty scheme a year early, in the 1996-97 budget, and it has constantly undermined the industry by changing the terms of operation on a regular basis over the last 10 years, including having three different positions on excise in the last parliament alone.

We are dealing with a government that really is making policy on the run. It is very important that we have research in Australia, but we should be using some of the material already available to this parliament. There is already a Gas to Liquids Taskforce report that is gathering dust somewhere. We need an industry framework in which to encourage and establish the industries in Australia to convert our coal and gas resources—which are vast—to clean diesel. We need to develop training courses to help those people who wish to enter this new industry deal with the mechanics of changing existing technology. We need more emphasis on broader research on the energy fields and on how to make Australia self-sufficient in fuel. Australia has the resources, both fossil and renewable. We have more than anyone else. We are lucky in that respect and we could be independent from and competitive with the rest of the world. However, this is a paradox when we look at the mission statement of the Biodiesel Association of Australia:

We are more than 50 per cent reliant on international supply of fuel for all major industry, with a sharp decline in our self-sufficiency over the next 10 years to less than 20 per cent.

We could be doing so much better.

A report on Landline on the weekend said that Australia is more than ever in a position to start mainstream production of biodiesel. There is a person in my electorate who wants to talk to me about that and about using waste oils in a by-products plant that that small company uses. I remember my brother putting the oil from his takeaway shop in the garden. It certainly encouraged the worms, but it was not going to be a long-term solution. Making this stuff into biodiesel can be.

We need some guidance and we need a national standard. All of the hard work still has to be done, and we really want this government to do that and we want the Prime Minister to say those sorts of things. But the PM has said that we should reduce our future dependence on the Middle East. He is not really doing anything from a government perspective to encourage activity and research, and the private sector can only go so far. The government’s support is needed to expand our horizons of research and the infrastructure on which new ideas can be developed. We need to make the most of our advantages and develop leading edge technology, thus creating jobs while training our young people to be ready for the next wave of energy resources. (Time expired)

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