Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (15:20): I want to congratulate the government and the Prime Minister for today doing precisely what the coalition recommended, on Friday, that he do. It only took four days, after four weeks of not a lot happening—a lot of meetings, but not a lot happening. We called for the halving of the fuel excise and the reduction of the heavy-vehicle road user charge. In fact, this last week I've spoken with the Trucking Association and I've also spoken with the bus industry; both were very concerned about the costs that they were incurring. In my electorate, nine earth-moving employees have found themselves without a job this week because the employer cannot pay what he's being required to pay for fuel. Twenty-six cents a litre—yes, we suggested it; we think it makes a difference. Removing the road user charge for heavy vehicles impacts the trucks on the road. Earth moving, basically, as far as I understand, is on land; therefore, it won't incur that cost. I'm happy to be corrected on that.

But these are still very difficult times for businesses and companies. We have citrus growers who are really thinking twice about whether they will harvest their citrus, because it uses so much fuel to do so, and then to get it to market—the agents down there are saying, 'We can't afford to buy it at that price because we can't sell it afterward.' So we have fruit, we have vegetables and we have crops at risk.

And this is a time of great difficulty for Australia. Not only are we going through a cost-of-living crisis but inflation continues to rise and we expect another couple of rises, potentially, in this next month. Australians are doing it tough. Mortgages continue to increase—$28,000 on an average mortgage. How do people get through this? This is not about politics. This is about how Australians are finding life right now, without a clear message of hope in front of them.

The Albanese government, by contrast, have accused Australians of panic buying—and they were still doing it today—while they have been panic legislating. We can only say that this Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Strategic Reserve) Bill 2026 is another piece of 'quick, let's get it out the door by tonight'. The Prime Minister said, 'Let's just get it moving.' Hardly any Labor members are speaking on it because of the urgency. This is the pattern that we are seeing time and time again from this government—lost in the waves in the ocean of despair because it really doesn't know what it's doing. We will see a shortened debate today, for sure, and the bill sent to the Senate so that we have laws passed by Good Friday.

Today's measures, we hear, will come at a $2.55 billion cost for three months. Let's not forget that the Commonwealth and, in turn, the states have gained $300 million in GST receipts since the crisis began, and it's pleasing that the states are considering what they're going to do about that. But we have meeting after meeting—

Mr Small: Roundtables.

Dr WEBSTER: roundtables, summits. 'Anyone for a forum? Anyone for another meeting? How about we have a phone hook-up? Let's see if we can make a decision to improve the lives of Australians!'

The Albanese Labor government is asleep at the wheel and out of gas—unnecessarily so. As we have seen all too well this week, the Albanese Labor government has been gaslighting Australians and blaming the Australian public, particularly farmers, for buying fuel—fuel they need because unseasonably wet conditions mean that crops need to go in or weeds need to be sprayed. Once again, we see the government blaming the victims of this crisis when they should be taking responsibility, gaslighting Australians that there was no such supply crisis—even at the beginning of last week there was no supply crisis, apparently—and then being dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledging, actually, there is a crisis.

Australia has immense reserves of oil and gas—and, I might say, coal and uranium. Geoscience Australia estimates that we have over 100,000 petajoules in proven and probable resources. That's around 17 billion barrels. The US Energy Information Administration estimated 13 years ago that we have a further 403 billion barrels of shale oil, with around 17½ billion barrels deemed recoverable at that stage. Theoretically, based on a daily oil consumption of over one million barrels a day, we could use our recoverable shale oil for around 42 years. That's just a starting point.

Australia also has an incredible capacity to produce biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, but stocks on hand at present are not being brought into the mix. Take, for example, biodiesel. Australia produced 2.14 million tonnes of canola in 2019 and more in recent years, and we could have used that to produce 5.5 million barrels of biodiesel. Instead, 70 per cent of that canola, or carinata, went to the European Union for them to make into biodiesel.

This is a crisis that was entirely foreseeable. The late former senator Jim Molan was saying as much—that our fuel security was at risk and we needed domestic, sovereign capacity.

Mr Small: Good man.

Dr WEBSTER: He was a very good man. I've been saying similar for some time now as well, as has most of the coalition. The world has changed. The international security context has changed, perhaps for a generation. We hope not, but we must take the world as we find it, not as we hope it would be. Australia is blessed with every energy resource under the sun, including not only the sun but also oil and gas and coal and uranium. It's time to stop the self-inflicted harm of anti-Australian political ideologies and tap into our enormous energy reserves.

These bills are about reconfiguring Export Finance Australia to become a body that invests in imports for fuel security, not just our export capacity. Let's look at the numbers. Over 50 per cent of Australia's total energy demand is from liquid fuels. Cars and passenger vehicles make up just 30 per cent of our liquid fuel demand; the other 70 per cent is freight, aviation, mining, agriculture, manufacturing and construction. Liquid fuels make up 60 per cent of our total imports by volume. It is actually insane in a country blessed with the resources that we have.

The USA, Brazil, Norway, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China and India—most of them large countries—considering their onshore and offshore reserves, have been pursuing energy independence. Australia's refinery capacity meets just 20 per cent of our demands. Over 95 per cent of our liquid fuel supply depends on ships arriving at our ports, which in this time, with the war in Iran occurring, is incredibly risky business.

Mr Small: All foreign owned, all foreign owned.

Dr WEBSTER: All foreign owned. In government, the coalition spent over $260 million, adding 40 per cent to our diesel storages. We created the minimum stockholding obligation—not Labor, as the minister likes to claim. Labor was mugged by reality on the role of gas in the energy transition. High costs of doing business and the cost of living due to Labor's renewables-or-bust approach drove Labor to accept reality. So too, the Iran war has forced Labor to accept the reality that we need fuel security.

Labor had all their eggs in the renewables basket. They proposed that everyone own electric vehicles, despite the geographic realities in regional Australia, and that all our electricity would be from intermittent solar and wind. As I said, 50 per cent of Australia's total energy demand is liquid fuels. Labor have been dragged kicking and screaming by the realities of global geopolitics to do what the rest of the world was already doing: build up energy capacity on fossil fuels and renewables.

Labor was pursuing Greens votes in inner cities and throwing families and our economy under the bus. Part-time Energy Minister Bowen has been preening and posing on the international stage as COP31 president in charge of the COP31 negotiations. This is a government more focused on looking good on the international stage than on Australian national security. Minister Bowen spoke today about being ahead of the curve. That word 'curve' might be triggering for some—tired old Labor dusting off the old playbooks. This is a government that has been behind the curve since it took office four years ago. The dog didn't eat their homework; there was no homework to eat. The dog is innocent.

Here are some potential solutions to this fuel security crisis from a party of government: prioritising and investing in Australian exploration and drilling for oil, gas and unconventional petroleum; exploring options to produce more liquid fuels from our coal reserves; further building up the in-country fuel reserves the coalition bolstered in government; investing in our refining capacity; supporting complementary fuel streams; and establishing a dedicated fuel security budget. I look forward to seeing what the Labor government does with that.