Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fuel Security Bill 2021. The Australian fuel market operates on a near just-in-time basis and is heavily reliant on global supply chains operating under normal conditions. This helps to keep operational costs low but means the market is very vulnerable to disruptions. In the Northern Territory this near just-in-time was replaced with a 'ran out of time' event, when we actually ran out of bulk fuel. This happened just as I was leaving to come down here for these two weeks of sittings. Just before I left the Northern Territory, we actually ran out of bulk fuel supplies. While domestic users were largely unaffected, motorists did notice a price spike, and industry was forced to jump in and do what industry does, particularly in the Northern Territory, and find a solution. They found the solution by sending multiple road trains interstate to pick up fuel and bring it back to the Northern Territory to supply the bowsers. The federal government was not advised by the Gunner Labor government, as it should have been, on this dire fuel supply situation in the Northern Territory.

The Greens over here don't care about fuel. They don't believe in fossil fuels and they'd like us to stop using them. Perhaps they'd like to come to the Northern Territory and tell the people there that they should run their tractors or road trains on solar panels. And I certainly haven't seen a plane or a helicopter running on pumped hydro. Imagine running an electric helicopter mustering cattle. I imagine you would probably move one beast 20 metres before you'd have to stop and recharge for 10 hours. They also want us to ride bicycles. That's lovely if you live in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane; I imagine you can ride a bicycle to the shop. But try telling the people of the Northern Territory that they should complete a 600-kilometre round trip on a bicycle just to go shopping.

An honourable senator: It's a long ride!

Absolutely it's a long ride, and you're not going to carry very much home, so you're going to be cycling to the shops 600 kilometres every day.

So it's obvious to us that maintaining adequate fuel supplies is extremely important, and it's also a responsibility of state and territory governments to not let those supplies run out. In this case, with the Gunner Labor government, it was a complete abrogation of their responsibilities not to, at the very least, inform us of the dire situation the Northern Territory was facing. This issue came about, as things often do, because of a convergence of problems, none of which had been adequately appreciated or understood by Chief Minister Michael Gunner or his government. The problem was that international shipping had been affected due to COVID-19. This, combined with the extra demand from domestic users and people travelling to the Northern Territory as part of their annual holidays because they can't go overseas, so Darwin became their new Bali—which was great—placed a lot of pressure on our fuel supplies.

It was also combined with the fact that there is only one bulk storage facility in the Northern Territory, Vopak, at East Arm port, which meant we sailed extremely close to the red line of empty. In fact, industry went into the red and domestic service stations had only the supplies that were in their tanks at the time. A ship did sail into Darwin Port approximately five days after bulk supplies ran out, but the problem is that, when a ship turns up, it takes another three to five days to have the fuel tested and then unloaded, distributed and settled in tanks before it becomes available to retailers and domestic suppliers.

I've been working with the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, to ensure that the Territory does not face these types of issues again due to the fragile nature of our fuel supplies and the behaviour of the Gunner Labor government. The federal government's 10-year comprehensive fuel security package includes a storage program called Boosting Australia's Diesel Storage Program—imaginatively named!—which will see domestic fuel supplies increased by 40 per cent by 2024. Hopefully, as we move into the future with these programs in place, we in the Northern Territory will not face such a fragile environment again.

The fuel security package aims to increase Australia's resilience to fuel supply disruptions, secure sovereign refining capability and keep fuel prices low for consumers. I commend this bill to the Senate.