Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are absolutely right. The Prime Minister wraps himself in the flag and overuses these words over and over again but never, ever delivers in the national interest. He talks about it, but he never, ever delivers. It's all about the announcement, never about the follow-through. It's political fixes to systemic problems. It's absolute failure of leadership from the top down. Policy after policy, they're dragged kicking and screaming to the most basic of solutions. Then they celebrate like they've won the World Cup.

The government has been warned for years that fuel security is a matter of national importance. The question is: why did it take them so long to act? In 2013, Air Vice-Marshal John Blackburn, retired Deputy Chief of the RAAF, warned that:

… Australia has small and declining fuel stocks—about three weeks' worth of oil and refined fuels.

His report described long maritime supply chains for liquid fuels, supply chains that run through a number of conflict zones and vulnerabilities to trading systems, shipping ports and refineries. He concluded:

If a scenario such as a confrontation in the Asia Pacific region were to happen, our fuel supplies could be severely constrained and we do not have a viable contingency plan in place to provide adequate supplies for Australia's essential, everyday services and for our military forces.

What did the government do? Nothing. It wasn't the last time this issue and Air Vice-Marshal Blackburn were going to be ignored. In June 2015, the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport tabled its report into Australia's transport energy resilience and sustainability. Their first recommendation was:

… the Australian Government undertake a comprehensive whole-of-government risk assessment of Australia's fuel supply, availability and vulnerability. The assessment should consider the vulnerabilities in Australia's fuel supply to possible disruptions resulting from military actions, acts of terrorism, natural disasters, industrial accidents and financial and other structural dislocation.

What happened? Nothing.

In March 2018, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommended:

… the Department of Home Affairs, in consultation with the Department of Defence and the Department of the Environment and Energy, review and develop measures to ensure that Australia has a continuous supply of fuel to meet its national security priorities.

What happened? Nothing, diddly-squat. Later that year, Senator Molan began publicly criticising his own government's failure to hold fuel reserves in Australia. He told Alan Jones, correctly: 'The vulnerabilities are very, very high. It is a critical national security issue.' He's been publicly criticising them ever since, and he hasn't been the only one. You can't find somebody in the defence and national security institutions that doesn't think this is a critical issue that has been ignored year after year.

In 2018, the International Energy Agency published an in-depth report on the Australian energy policies. It found:

Australia is the only IEA country which is a net oil importer and solely relies on the commercial stockholding of industry to meet its minimum 90-day stockholding obligation under the International Energy Program. The country does not have public stockholdings and does not place a minimum stockholding obligation on its domestic oil industry.

What happened in relation to that finding? Absolutely nothing. In April 2019, the Department of the Environment and Energy indicated that Australia had a reserve of 18 days of petrol, 22 days of diesel and 23 days of jet fuel. What happened when this obviously urgent state of affairs was revealed to the government by its own department? Nothing—no policy change, no administrative action, no substance, nothing. The only thing that could get anyone in this eight-year-old, tired, ineffective government even mildly interested in fuel security was the possibility of controversial oil and gas projects.

In 2019, the then resources minister, Senator Canavan, cynically tried to use fuel security to open up oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight. Air Vice-Marshal Blackburn, who had now been lobbying for this issue to be taken seriously for five years, said of this obvious political grandstanding:

Guaranteed flow of oil is what's important, and its stock holding is the spring in the supply chain when it goes on and off … The Government has done little or nothing to guarantee this.

Year after year, the government has been warned that we are facing a problem as a nation. And year after year, this government, the Morrison-Turnbull-Abbott-Truss-Joyce—and the other guy, what's his name?—McCormack-Joyce government, has done nothing. It took an utter crisis for the government to act, and, in the intervening period, half of our oil-refining capability in Australia has gone, disappeared for good. And these guys want to do a victory lap. The government hasn't had a real energy policy for eight years. This crisis came along, and they've had to jerry-rig something together.

The government announced a comprehensive fuel security package in September last year. Nothing guarantees that something's not comprehensive like when the government announces that it is. The government said:

The government is committed to a sovereign onshore refinery capacity despite the threat to the viability of the industry.

Minister Taylor said: 'Our fuel security package will keep fuel prices for Australian consumers amongst the lowest in the OECD. It will create around 1,000 new jobs and protect the existing jobs of our farmers, truckers, miners and tradies.' Do you know how long it lasted? It lasted just three days. Three days later, BP announced the closure of Australia's largest refinery, in Kwinana. In December, there was another announcement. Minister Taylor announced:

… the government was taking immediate and decisive action to keep our domestic refineries operating.

Why does anybody pay any attention to what Minister Taylor or Prime Minister Morrison say? It's all about the spin. It's all about the announcement. Two months later, after this breathless announcement from Minister Taylor, ExxonMobil announced that they were closing their refinery in Altona—350 jobs lost. So, one announcement lasted for three days and the other one lasted for 60 days. Within six months of the government's comprehensive fuel security package—so-called—half of Australia's refineries had announced their closure. So now we've got another package—more press conferences with monogrammed hi-vis being worn by ministers hoping to line up with the Prime Minister for another photo shoot. It's the old nick on and then nick off, from the Morrison government! And the government wants to be congratulated for finally dragging itself, over eight long years, to a basic modicum of a fuel security package that will achieve about half of what is required.

Labor will support this piece of legislation. But we will point out that this government ignores the advice, that they are hostile to the experts, that their incapacity to develop an energy policy framework does real harm—not just to household bills, by driving the price of energy up, and not just to manufacturing jobs, by reducing investment certainty, and not just by making it harder for businesses to invest in the kind of industry that creates good jobs. It does real damage to our national security. This is a government that's entirely lost its way—it lost its way a long time ago—and the Australian public should send this government packing at the next opportunity they have, and get a real government who will actually deliver a national fuel security framework, a manufacturing framework that actually might create a few decent jobs and lift our national capability, instead of pushing it backwards. (Time expired)