The Nationals have declared their support for research into converting surplus wine in Australia into ethanol to help with national fuel shortages.

Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster MP said she had been pursuing the initiative for years as the wine industry strains under an immense 260 million litre oversupply of wine in storage.  Leader of The Nationals Matt Canavan told a Griffith NSW audience yesterday backed a wine-to-ethanol investigation.

“For years the wine industry has been under huge pressure with low prices paid to winegrape growers because so much wine is in storage,” Dr Webster said.

“I have been a consistent advocate for Australia to have its own biofuels industry as, on the biodiesel front, 70 per cent of our canola is currently sent to Europe for conversion into biofuels.  

“Australian farmers, our transport and manufacturing industries and motorists need fuel supplies to be supplemented by biodiesel and ethanol production, and the combined wine oversupply and fuel undersupply crisis is the perfect scenario to justify Commonwealth investment.”

The Nationals are calling for the Treasurer Jim Chalmers to include research into a wine-to-ethanol initiative in the upcoming Federal Budget, and Dr Webster has written to the Treasurer specifically asking for the investigation to be budgeted.

“Apparently the wine oversupply equates to about 2 days’ worth of Australia’s fuel needs – that is a significant volume.  

“My hope is that a biofuels facility would also provide future diversification should we see, as we are right now, export issues for table grapes.  Rather than dispose of grapes that are no longer fresh enough for export, a processing facility into ethanol would be an ideal alternative.

Dr Webster said that given processing facilities exist in northern New South Wales already, as Member for Mallee she is making the case for facilities to be developed in Mallee.

“One potential challenge with a business case for processing wine into ethanol may be the transport costs.  Given much of the excess wine is stored in the Victoria – New South Wales – South Australia tri-state area, with Mallee on the major highways between the three states, we are ideally placed to host new government-backed ethanol and biodiesel production facilities.”

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