Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

PETROLEUM AND OTHER FUELS REPORTING BILL 2017

This Bill would establish a reporting regime for petroleum, other fuels and fuel-related products to improve Australia's fuel statistics.

The Australian Government has produced statistics on the production, refining, import, export, consumption and end-of-month stocks of petroleum and fuels such as ethanol for over forty years. These statistics are used by government agencies to monitor the market and energy security; by business to monitor supply and demand trends and prioritise future investment; and by international organisations to help compile global statistics which increase market transparency.

In recent years, the proportion of businesses contributing to the statistics has declined, while the fuel market has become increasingly competitive and diverse in both the sources of fuel and the types of fuel available. While a clear majority of the industry supports the statistics and continues to contribute data, declining participation in some categories has reduced the coverage, usefulness and accuracy of the statistics. The introduction of a compulsory reporting requirement will ensure that the Government can continue to produce reliable and useful fuel statistics.

The production of accurate statistics is particularly important as the Government implements its plan to return to compliance with Australia's obligation as a member of the International Energy Agency to hold fuel stocks equivalent to 90 days of the previous year's average daily net oil imports. Including stocks as part of the reporting requirement will ensure Australia's oil equivalent stockholdings can be calculated accurately and in a timely manner.

The Bill sets up a legislative framework for mandatory reporting. The specific reporting requirements will be provided in subordinate legislation to ensure the reporting requirements stay up-to-date with changes in the market and technology. The fuel market has the potential to undergo significant change, from the use of biofuels to battery powered cars to the introduction of hydrogen fuel cells. It is important that new products and activities can be swiftly added to the reporting requirements to ensure the statistics remain relevant.

During consultation on the reporting requirement, businesses made clear that they expect their sensitive information to be treated securely. The Bill provides extensive protections for personal or commercially sensitive information. For example, the Bill prohibits the publication of information that could identify an individual or enable commercial-in-confidence information to be determined. This ensures that reporting businesses can be confident that their sensitive information will be stored securely, only used where necessary, and only published where appropriate.

The Government is committed to minimising the regulatory burden associated with mandatory reporting. Data-sharing arrangements are being pursued with a number of Federal, state and territory agencies to ensure that data already reported to government is used first, rather than requiring it to be reported twice. For example, the Bill will authorise the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to share import and export data collected through the customs regime to remove the need for this information to be recollected. The Bill also requires an independent review to be undertaken in 2021 to ensure the impact and effectiveness of the reporting regime is evaluated and, if necessary, able to be refined.

PETROLEUM AND OTHER FUELS REPORTING (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS AND TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) BILL 2017

This Bill supports the implementation of the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Bill 2017.

This Bill will empower the Australian Taxation Office and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to share data they have collected with the Department of the Environment and Energy to reduce the reporting burden associated with the reporting obligation imposed by the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Bill 2017. The data provided to the Department of the Environment and Energy will also be used to monitor compliance with the reporting obligation contained in the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Bill 2017.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Bill 2017 and the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2017. Anyone who has dealt with the Australian gas market knows it is one of the most opaque and least transparent markets in Australia. No-one knows exactly how much gas is produced, who holds it, how much it is sold for and where it goes. This bill takes one small step towards improving that transparency and, as such, Labor is supportive of the bill.

Rather than relying on voluntary disclosure of information, this bill will require gas companies to disclose information regarding gas suppliers to the government. That information can be used to inform public policy and, with appropriate safeguards to protect confidential information, to inform the general public, researchers, the industry and others. But no-one should be fooled into thinking if this bill becomes law we will have a solution to the gas crisis this government has let develop.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment and Energy like to blame the last Labor government for this crisis—and, in fact, any other crisis we have. This is a crisis that has seen gas prices for Australian industry rise from around $4 per gigajoule a few short years ago to up to $20 per gigajoule today. It is a crisis that has the potential to devastate Australian industry and Australian jobs. It is a crisis that is impacting electricity affordability and our security of supply.

Unlike this government, Labor has been warning about this crisis for years. As long ago as 2015, Labor adopted a gas export national interest test to ensure gas exports didn't come at the expense of Australian industry and households. What was the Liberal Party's response? Echoing the gas industry, they said a gas export national interest trust would increase red tape. Rather than act, they did nothing and let an impending crisis turn into a debilitating crisis that is now threatening industry, jobs and even our power supply.

Once the crisis had become so severe that even the Liberal Party couldn't ignore it they held a series of morning teas with industry promising to halve gas prices. And then they backtracked on that same promise. They promised to introduce export controls through their domestic gas security mechanism—a mechanism Labor is hopeful will lower prices and increase domestic supply, but one that doesn't directly address price and won't be implemented until next year, if ever. No wonder stakeholders feel it will lock in high prices and fail to alleviate supply shortages. The government still won't support a simple test to ensure gas exports are in the national interest. Labor supports a strong LNG industry and a strong domestic gas market. It shouldn't be beyond our abilities to have both.

The fact is that when it comes to industry policy, like in so many other areas, this government is divided, ineffectual and blame-shifting its way to an ever-increasing shambles. One of their favourite blame-shifting targets is always the states. The Labor government of Victoria is a favourite target when it comes to the national gas crisis. They really love to blame Victorian bans on onshore gas development, forgetting that the New South Wales Liberal government also has such a ban. There is no attempt to play a constructive role in building and supporting community consent for responsible gas development in these states. It is all about blaming someone else.

When Labor was in government we worked with crossbenchers to foster community consent for responsible onshore gas development by building up processes communities could have confidence in and could understand. We established that independent expert scientific committee to advise on potential developments and their impacts on water resources. We included a water trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

The Liberal government abolished this good work, and when the inevitable happened, when communities opposed new developments, they started wagging the finger at the states for representing the view of the communities that they actually represent. This seems to be the typical Liberal approach to energy: deny a problem and oppose other solutions; let the problem get so big that it's then impossible to deny it anymore, then blame others. That is because they don't have the unity, the intelligence or, indeed, the ability to play a constructive role in finding and then actually implementing a solution—spin and substance. The longer the energy crisis goes on, the more Australians know about it and are fearful.

The government's approach to the gas crisis is mirrored in its approach to the electricity crisis. The electricity policy paralysis from this government has led to an energy crisis. Wholesale electricity prices have doubled under the Liberal government, while carbon pollution is once again on the rise. The government's Finkel review, which has been discussed many times in this place, recommended that a clean energy target be implemented urgently to end the policy uncertainty strangling investment and to deliver new supply and lower prices. The government is too weak and divided to deliver on the central recommendation from its own review.

Labor understands that this is a real crisis. That's why we're willing to put aside our preferred policy of an emissions trading scheme, to implement a clean energy target. We've discussed this in this place, but we have no partner in government. We have no-one to negotiate with. The government are paralysed by their own disunity. They can't address the largest electricity crisis this nation has faced in living memory. We have some government members saying that they would scrap the 2020 renewable energy target, while others are on record as saying that it's here to stay. We have some members, like the Deputy Prime Minister, saying coal is the future and the government should fund new coal plants with taxpayer funds, while the views of the Minister for the Environment and Energy range from, in one quote, 'The government stands ready to finance new coal plants,' to, in another quote:

We don't have a plan on the table to build a new coal-fired power station …

Seemingly—and there has been a lot of media—his view depends on the audience he's addressing, or is it actually the state where he's making his comments? The Treasurer has veered from bringing lumps of coal into the other place—and that was truly a great moment!—to recently saying:

Let's not think that there's cheap new coal, there's not.

Is it any wonder that the government can't agree with itself on a national energy policy when individual ministers can't agree with themselves?

This would be amusing, and I know that there has been laughter at times, if it weren't so serious. Energy is the lifeblood of our economy. Industry, households, jobs, our security—they all rely on affordable, secure energy and increasingly on clean energy. What is needed is clear: a national energy policy to support new investment, a policy like a well-designed, clean-energy target. At this historic crossroads at the beginning of a global energy revolution, Australia finds itself with a government divided and inadequate to the task before it. Australians know, and they desperately need, so much better.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm rising today to speak to the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Bill 2017 and the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2017. Two years ago I participated in the Senate inquiry into Australia's transport energy resilience and sustainability, which was undertaken by the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee. In that committee a lot of evidence was presented, and we heard, that Australia was not complying with our commitments under the International Energy Agency to hold 90 days of liquid fuel reserves. In many cases we didn't even know what our fuel reserves were. The data wasn't there. There was a complete lack of information about the level and exact extent of our fuel reserves. It was astounding how we were completely failing to meet our international obligations. For years the government has relied on compliance surveys by both upstream and downstream oil and gas companies. It was very apparent, as we heard the evidence and read the submissions, that the voluntary compliance was not doing the job. We heard from the industry that mandatory reporting would be very onerous and would create all sorts of compliance costs, but I must say that, when that evidence was presented, it rang hollow, and other witnesses to that committee confirmed that most of the super major oil companies know exactly what sort of fuel stocks they are holding and can spit it out at the push of a button but don't choose to.

We also heard from Air Vice Marshal John Blackburn that Australia is the only developed oil and fuel importing country in the world that has no mandated government or industry stockholdings or government control over part of the oil fuel infrastructure. This should have been shocking, but really, when you see how this government is serving the interests of the fossil fuel industries, it wasn't surprising at all. It has the lightest of touches with regulation or compliance with reporting when it comes to the oil, gas and coal industries.

But at least here we are with these bills, and they are an improvement on the status quo. I congratulate the government for finally bringing them to the parliament, for these bills will improve the situation. They will require that regulated entities provide a report to the Secretary of the Department of the Environment and Energy regarding current petroleum and liquid fuel activities and products. They will permit the secretary of the department to collect and publish information regarding those petroleum and liquid products. They do contain important provisions around the handling of commercial information and they will give those necessary enforcement powers to government to ensure compliance.

We know the importance of an accurate record of our fuel stocks. Yes, they will help us to ensure compliance with our international obligations under the International Energy Agency, but it's also imperative that the Australian public and the stakeholders who require this information have an accurate record of the state of our industry. Analysts, researchers and, most importantly, the people who are planning the long-term decarbonisation of our economy rely on this data so we can make that energy transition. We need to have the best available data to keep prices down and energy supplies secure as that transition occurs.

In summary, the Greens acknowledge that moving to the mandatory collection of fuel statistics is way overdue, and we will support the bills before the parliament today. But what we aren't talking about today is the other, much more significant part of fuel security, and that's that, if we are serious about fuel security and energy security, our reliance on these petroleum products must come to an end. That means that we need to be seriously moving to decarbonising the transport fuels. That's where the debate should be moving. Yes, mandatory reporting of the statistics of how much we have of petroleum products is important, but much more important is the action that we need to take so that we don't need to rely upon those petroleum products.

All over the world there are actions in which Australia is being left behind. A key one is the shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. We are woefully behind in making that shift to electric vehicles, which can be powered on 100 per cent renewable energy. Given that our transport greenhouse gas emissions are up there second only to stationary energy as the most significant part of our greenhouse gas emissions, this is where we need to be taking action if we're going to be serious about tackling global warming.

In other countries around the world in recent months we have seen some really significant changes. For example, in the United Kingdom and France, they are going to be phasing out new sales of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2040. We have not seen a skerrick of a sign or heard a whisper that the government is looking at doing that. We haven't got a target for electric vehicles. We've got no mechanism in place to increase the number of electric vehicles on the market. It is such an important element of decarbonising our transport system, and we are just sitting still and going nowhere with that.

Fuel efficiency is another issue. While we still have petrol-fuelled and diesel-fuelled vehicles, we need to make sure they are the most fuel-efficient vehicles available. Internationally, we know that 80 per cent of the international light vehicle market already has standards, and yet Australia is a dumping ground for the low-quality vehicle variants because we don't have these standards. It would save consumers hundreds of dollars in fuel if we had fuel efficiency standards. And it would save fuel. That's the sort of measure that's going to be making a really important dent in ensuring we are using petroleum most efficiently, reducing the amount of oil that we're using and making sure that the oil that is being used is being used as efficiently as possible. From the reporting that's been done, we know that those hundreds of dollars in fuel savings to consumers are going to more than offset the extra cost of investing in more fuel-efficient vehicles.

There are other ways, of course, that we can act to reduce our reliance on imported fuel and so tackle our fuel security. One way is to shift as much transport as possible away from private vehicles and to public transport, which is much more easily powered by renewable energy than personal vehicles, which mostly use liquid fuels. That means planning our cities for that shift so that the amount and mode share of public transport is increased and the number of trips done on public transport lifts up from the current rate, which in cities across our country is only 10 to 20 per cent. That is the sort of thing that would make a serious dent in tackling fuel security.

Then there are the modes of transport which don't require any fuel, renewable or fossil, other than the fuel that you put into your body, and that's active transport. So we really need measures to increase the rates of walking and cycling in our cities. That would not only be good for fuel security and for reducing people's costs of transport; it would also be very important for our health. Every trip done by active transport, by people walking and cycling, is improving people's health. We need to be making cycling safer and more accessible. We know what's holding us back there. What stops people from cycling is that we don't have safe cycling infrastructure.

We need to look at these transport issues holistically. We can't just pick out one little thing and say, 'Okay, we're going to put in place measures that require mandatory reporting on fuel stocks.' We need to work out how we can bring all of these things together so that measures to improve cycling and increase the use of public transport can sit side-by-side with measures to shift freight from heavy road vehicles onto rail, to get freight vehicles to move away from fossil fuels and to encourage the use of hydrogen for heavy freight vehicles. If the government is serious about tackling the multitudinous issues involved in making our transport systems more secure and safer, and climate change, then these are the sorts of measures that we need to be undertaking going forward.

So the Greens are supporting this bill today, but we see that, really, it underlines just how much further we still have to go. We need to take action on a whole range of important measures if we are truly to make our transport systems safe, secure and reliable.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions to this debate and for their indications of support for this bill. The Turnbull government takes energy security matters incredibly seriously, across both the stationary energy and transport energy sectors. Whilst this bill focuses particularly on transport energy fuels and related topics, I note that Senator Moore's contribution stretched into other energy markets and systems. As a government, we are taking serious action to ensure the affordability and reliability of Australia's energy markets whilst also ensuring that Australia meets its international obligations in relation to climate change. Our investment in and pursuit of sensible investments such as Snowy 2.0 makes far more sense for ensuring energy security in the future than do the policies of, say, my home state of South Australia, where, thanks to the failure of energy policy by the state government, we now see fleets of diesel generators being brought into the state to operate over the summer. They will of course be using diesel, the dirtiest fuel source for climate change emissions, to generate energy. In relation to this bill and the actions we're taking in relation to the transport energy space, that is also depleting stocks of petroleum fuels reserves and otherwise, owing to the excessive use of diesel fuel resulting from the South Australian state Labor government's failed and flawed energy policy. We have other approaches that are dealing with not only the retail market, distribution and the operation of energy markets but also with generation—by investing in Snowy 2.0, the exploration of other pumped hydro facilities, and projects such as the solar-thermal operation at Port Augusta.

This bill relates specifically to the accuracy, reliability and timeliness of Australia's fuel statistics. It will help to safeguard energy security, particularly in the transport energy space and the operation of the fuel market, and it will help to ensure that Australia meets its international obligations. It will provide for accurate statistics which will help Australia plan a return to compliance with the International Energy Agency oil stockholding obligation. It will ensure that we capture all relevant fuels within the Australian market, which will ensure we can comply, and do so at minimal potential cost to all sectors. The government is committed to energy security. I commend this bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.