Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I presume the last part's out of order, Mr Speaker, so I'll concentrate on the earlier remarks. The member raises a very serious issue, and I want to thank him very much for his passion in relation to fuel security. I direct him to the government's response to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security report on the Security of Critical Infrastructure Bill 2017. The whole-of-government response said in part:

The risk of espionage, sabotage and coercive influence in Australia's domestic liquid fuel refinement part of the supply chain has been assessed as relatively low, due to the sector's diversity and the resilience of the market system to respond to any disruption at a particular location.

But the response went on to say:

However, the sector is heavily reliant on imports, and critical port infrastructure. The infrastructure at ports that support imports of liquid fuel was a key factor in determining which ports are captured by the Bill. The critical ports captured by the Bill provide 92% of total liquid fuels imports.

We went on to respond in this way:

… the Government agrees that fuel supply is a critical issue. As such, the Committee's concerns, including whether liquid fuel assets should be covered by the Bill, will be considered in the next National Energy Security Assessment.

I'm going to ask the Minister for the Environment and Energy to add to the answer, because he has just announced a review in relation to the issue, but it is obviously a serious issue, and I acknowledge his interest in this matter.

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