Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Ageing (Senator Santoro) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to funding for an education campaign concerning Opal fuel and petrol sniffing.

In his reply, Senator Santoro made a number of interesting statements. He said that market research in Alice Springs was undertaken in mid-October with local fuel distributors, despite the fact that Opal was rolled out in September. He said that a detailed campaign strategy is in the process of being prepared to be run out in February. This is five to six months after the initial rollout of Opal. He said that the target audience was predominantly Alice Springs residents and tourists.

It is very interesting to note that he acknowledges that the audience for the campaign is tourists and Alice Springs residents. The marketing campaign obviously needs to target these people, yet he then said that he was consulting Aboriginal elders in Alice Springs and that the reason for the delay was the difficulties involved in contacting them. This is extremely disingenuous when it is actually tourists and Alice Springs residents that need to be convinced about Opal, not the Aboriginal community. The Aboriginal community already know about the significant benefits of Opal. In fact, it was the Aboriginal community that called on government to roll out Opal across Alice Springs. They do not need to be educated about the benefits of Opal. Education campaigns about petrol sniffing are already going on in Aboriginal communities. They are not the target audience. As I said, it is extremely disingenuous of the government to say that that is the reason for the delay in rolling out an education campaign.

Senator Santoro said that some briefing notes had been prepared about research into vehicles being affected by Opal which proved conclusively—a fact we already know, because millions of litres of Opal are already being used—that Opal was not responsible for the malfunctioning of engines. But this information has not been communicated to the local media, and an ongoing, negative campaign has been run by the Advocate, for one, in Alice Springs, to dissuade people from using Opal.

Did the government take out ads or make any other effort to communicate this vital information to the residents of Alice Springs? No; there was nothing. Did the government contact local petrol stations with this information? Not that I know of. Did it send them posters, pamphlets or other information that showed the outcomes of this research? From what I have been able to find out from people in Alice Springs, the answer to that question is no.

The point here is that a communication strategy needed to be developed and run out as a matter of urgency as Opal was rolled out. It was a grave mistake to put Opal onto the market when it was known there would be confusion, misinformation and distrust, because this information was available on the occasions when it has been rolled out in the past. Plenty of evidence was given to the Senate committee that looked into petrol sniffing that this was what had happened. So the government knew that there would be a campaign of misinformation and that they needed to get information out to the community to let them know the benefits of non-sniffable fuel and the prospect of a decrease in the number of petrol sniffers. They also needed to let people know that it would not have a negative impact on people’s cars.

Eight out of the 13 petrol stations in Alice Springs converted to Opal in September. Now, because of the negative campaign that has been run by the local media, that number has decreased to two. This will inevitably lead—it already is leading—to an increase in the number of people coming into town seeking sniffable fuel again. So it is highly likely that the benefits that were gained initially through rolling out Opal have been lost. It is not only the people in the community of Alice Springs who will suffer because of that; it will also affect the surrounding community. That is one of the reasons why Opal needed to be rolled out across Alice Springs—to help the regional strategy across the broader region.

I understand that money has already been spent on developing an advertising campaign, but that has not been rolled out. It has stopped in the ministerial committee process. We desperately want to know why this has happened, and who did it, so that we can understand why such a sensible campaign has been stopped. It is having such a deleterious effect on the implementation of this program involving the rollout of Opal fuel, which is such an important component of dealing with the scourge of petrol sniffing that is affecting Aboriginal communities so seriously.

One would have to ask why the government have not moved to urgently address this misinformation. Weren’t they informed? Weren’t they monitoring the rollout? How could they so mishandle such an important part of this campaign? (Time expired)

Question agreed to.