Source: Prime Minister of Australia
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. It’s great to be here with Minister Bowen who will shortly give our usual Saturday weekly fuel update on Australia’s Minimum Stockholding Obligation for Fuel. Australia remains steady at Level Two in our National Fuel Security Plan, ‘Keeping Australia Moving’. It is our goal, of course, to remain at Level Two, as I’ve said many times, but we do live in a volatile world. The conflict in the Middle East is ongoing, and it is uncertain when it will end. And what we continue to have said is that the longer the conflict goes, the longer the economic tail will be of that conflict. But I do want to say that Australians are doing their bit. Australians are doing their bit as we ask them to, because every little bit helps. So, we’ve had a drop in that spike in demand that we saw prior to Easter. And at the same time we’ve been working on our resilience, including in Tuesday night’s Budget. On Tuesday night, we released our Strengthening Australia’s Fuel Resilience Package and that had a number of elements adding up to $14.8 billion, securing more fuel independently through the $7.5 billion Fuel and Fertiliser Security Facility.
Now, yesterday we announced an additional three cargoes have been secured for diesel coming to Australia. That brings a total to 14 and 700 million litres of additional fuel coming to Australia as a result of the measures that were put in place, making these purchases on the spot market. These particular fuel shipments are headed to South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and Victoria. And that comes on top of the fertiliser that we’ve been able to secure as well, making a substantial difference. In addition to that, we’ve announced our $3.2 billion Australian Fuel Security Reserve and increasing the Minimum Stockholding Obligation to increase Australia’s reserves of diesel and jet fuel to 50 days. In addition to that, we have announced our Strengthening the Fuel Security Services Payment to ensure the future of Australia’s last two remaining fuel refineries. But also $10 million, because we want to look at developing feasibility studies to expand our domestic refining capacity. And we have of course, halved the fuel excise, making a difference as well as slashing the Heavy Vehicle Road User Charge to zero, understanding how important those heavy vehicles are to deliver food to our supermarket shelves and to keep the country going. All of this has made a substantial difference. Now we’ll continue to work around the clock to make a difference at what is a difficult time around the globe. Around the globe, in many of our neighbours, what we see is compulsory public holidays every week because of fuel shortages which are there. What is absolutely remarkable, and Chris will give you the detail of that, is that today we have more diesel than we had on February 28. We had more petrol than we had in February 28, and we have more jet fuel than we had in February, on February 28th as well. That says something about the way that we’ve worked to make an enormous difference to supply here in Australia, which is the number one issue that we have concentrated on. And I want to pay tribute to the work that we’ve done with the private sector as well. This is a great example of what my government does – government working with the private sector in an orderly way to make a difference for Australians. Together, we are in a better position than anyone was predicting prior to Easter, when we did the National Address to the Nation, when we launched our advertising campaign to make sure that we brought Australians with us on this journey. And together we are maximising Australia’s fuel that is available. And that’s making a difference, of course, to our economy.
We, of course, are not through this. I’ll convene again this week, the National Cabinet once again, for our fortnightly meetings. That will take place on Wednesday morning of this week. I’ll be in Perth when that occurs and I’ll join that video meeting with the Premier of WA, Roger Cook, who’s also the Chair of the Council of Australian Federation. I’ll go to Minister Bowen and then we’re happy to take questions.
< CHRIS BOWEN, MINSTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY
I did just also want to very briefly touch on the fact that yesterday we surpassed 400,000 Cheaper Home Batteries. 400,000 Australian households reducing their bills very dramatically, but also helping the grid and helping all Australians reduce their bills. 11.2 gigawatt hours of extra storage introduced in less than a year under the Albanese Government’s Cheaper Home Battery policy, which means that there is less gas and coal being used in the nighttime, which is reducing prices for everyone, not just those Australians who have put in Cheaper Home Batteries. So, this is remarkably successful policy. Australians getting on with it, particularly in the outer suburbs and regions, getting on with it, putting in their Cheaper Home Batteries. 400,000. Quite a remarkable milestone for those Australian households. Thanks, PM.
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What we saw on Thursday from Angus Taylor was firstly in the morning, the Shadow Finance Minister said that everything would be costed in their plan. Then we had a speech on Thursday night with no costings attached. Then we had an interview, or better seen as a train wreck, from Angus Taylor immediately after his Budget Reply speech of division where he couldn’t say how much any of it cost. Then the next day they put out costings, yesterday, saying it was $22 billion. But we know that it’s actually $35 billion, which is why the PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Office – they should get it costed. If there’s any doubt that they want to argue that black is white, they should put it out, get their policies fully costed, because that is a $12.5 billion dollar gap in their costings. Now that’s before the other measures that were in their Budget which simply don’t add up. This is a guy who was Shadow Treasurer, now Leader of the Opposition, who went to an election arguing for higher taxes with higher deficits. Now what we have is between him and the other architect of the policy debacle, who was made Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in February, a position of where they simply do not have credibility going forward. Thursday night’s Budget Reply was a divisive speech, all taken from One Nation, as Barnaby Joyce has accurately said, rather than a well thought out alternative policy proposal. Angus Taylor wants to fight One Nation. We want as the Labor Government, to fight for our nation as a whole, not to divide people through the division which he put up, speaking about Australians and migrants as if they were completely separate things, as if there is no one in this country who is a migrant, who isn’t loyal to Australia. What I see is hardworking Australians who have come here making a difference to their nation.
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