SENATOR for Victoria and Opposition transport spokesperson Bridget McKenzie has called on the government to do more to bring about a clean and sustainable domestic fuel sector.
Speaking at the Australian Logistics Council Supply Chain Summit in Sydney, Senator McKenzie also said more needed to be done to guarantee national fuel security.
“If overseas supplies were cut tomorrow, Australia would have 28 days of petrol, 22 days of diesel and just 17 days of jet fuel,” she told the gathering.
“We need to remember those numbers. That’s barely three weeks of diesel to keep freight moving, nowhere near the 90-day benchmark set by the International Energy Agency. That is not resilience, that is sovereign vulnerability.”
This was, Senator McKenzie argued, “why low emissions fuels must be part of our freight future”.
“This is not just for our climate targets, but as a sovereign capability,” she said.
“Look at Brazil. Decades of investment in bioethanol [have created] a resilient domestic transport fuel industry and nearly 80% of new cars there can run on ethanol or petrol.
“Brazil is not immune to global oil shocks, but it is far less vulnerable than we are so that is the kind of foresight we need.”
Senator McKenzie also spoke about the need for sustainable aviation fuel.
“Four major reviews, countless work [from industry] and still no outcome. At the election four months ago there was an opportunity for the government to outline its policies on this issue but there was nothing,” she said.
Senator McKenzie also criticised what she argued was the government’s inaction on climate-change related policies.
“There is a real opportunity to progress the low-carbon liquid fuel industry right here in Australia and to service both land transport and aviation,” she said, noting the benefits of such policies for rural and regional Australia.
“Rather than the Prime Minister standing up and telling everyone we are going to be a global superpower in solar panels, we could literally be a superpower in low carbon fuels,” she said.