Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

People will be surprised that I am backing this amendment, but the argument put by the honourable member is a good argument. We don't have enough petrol. The very best we can hope for is 24 per cent self-sufficiency in petrol. If some of our transportation is met by electricity, that would dramatically help to make us self-sufficient; hence my support for what the honourable member is proposing here.

I don't think many people in Australia are aware that almost all of our petrol comes from Singapore and South Korea. As I pointed out, the First World War and the Second World War—and every war we have been in for the last 50 years—were about Middle Eastern petrol or petrol from Indonesia. I was sent as a young man to fight in Indonesia. Thank goodness, I survived before we got over there. If China embargoes oil coming into Australia, there is no way in the world that Singapore and South Korea are going to defy China. So Australia would be left without any petrol. I mean no disrespect for the government on this issue but there will be queues four kilometres long in front of every service station in Australia, and your five weeks supply will be used within a few days.

I've never been long on CO2 but I've never been a climate denier insofar as there is a problem that arises in the oceans with a change in the pH levels and the ability of shellfish to form their shells—and I quote the work done by Katharina Fabricius at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. There is no doubt that the institute and that scientist are correct in what they are saying. So we want a pullback. We've done some wonderful work with algae technology, and we believe that even coal-fired power stations can use algae technology. But it can only be used where you have a lot of water and a lot of flat land. Unfortunately, none of our existing power stations fall into that category.

So, without going too long and too sideways on the proposals here, again I reiterate that I support the amendment on the basis that two corporations are getting a $2 billion golden handshake, and what is Australia getting in return? Well, it's an abolition of a competitive system. Suddenly two of the players have a massive head start, in the case of Ampol, against United Petroleum. The ACCC have advised me, unofficially, that United Petroleum are holding the price of petrol down by about four cents a litre. So if they are excluded from the marketplace then you can rest assured that the price of petrol is going to go up by four cents a litre. There is a very real possibility—I might even say probability—of the damage to United Petroleum here being very critical indeed. Hence my opposition to the bill in its present form, without protections for competition in the marketplace.

I'm not the one advocating free markets and fair competition and not picking winners. Both sides of the House are in that camp. I'm not. But where there is an injustice and unfairness, the government should take cognisance of that. I applaud the government for taking cognisance of the point raised continuously in this place about fuel security—repeating that it arguably caused two world wars and has been responsible for almost every single war since World War II, with the exception of the African wars.

So I applaud the reasons why the government is doing this, but the implementation is a huge flaw. Firstly, I'd like to see the minister in this place while we are debating this legislation. Secondly, I would like him to take into account the effect upon the other competitors in the market and the golden handshake that's being given to one— (Time expired)

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