JAMIE BURNETT, HOST: I want to stay in Canberra, though, for a moment, because fuel security, reserves, prices now firmly on the agenda, a taskforce put together, there were farming groups, suppliers, lobby groups, politicians. And one of those politicians is Industry and Innovation Minister, Tim Ayres, good afternoon to you.
SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: G'day, good to be on the show. I want to just say on the back of that announcement from David, you know, of course, we wish him the very best. All of us put our hearts and souls into this job when we're in here, we might sharply disagree, but I wish him and his family the very best after what must have been a very difficult announcement for him today.
BURNETT: Yeah, could you relate to a little bit of what he said today, Tim?
AYRES: Yeah, well, as I said, you know, we all come to this place because we believe in the country, you know, we believe in Australia, we've got different approaches. You know, I've come to the job that I'm in as Minister for Industry because I believe in Australian manufacturing, I believe in a future for manufacturing workers. I've worked in the industry all my life, all my working life anyway, and you know, so I can relate to that, you know, you could hear the tremble in his voice, I absolutely get it.
And you know, there's a little bit too much anger and rancour and division and a lot of hot takes on social media in Australian politics at the moment, you know, some of that imported from overseas, you know, sharply divisive politics.
You know, it's not what we want in Australia. We want ‑ yeah, sure, we want our politicians to have their differences, but also a little bit of decency, and that's why I think it's important when something like that happens to just say across the aisle, you know, wish him the very best and understand exactly why that would have been a tough decision for him to make.
BURNETT: Hey, just on that, and I know we're going to get to talk fuel in a moment, but do you feel that the rancour has stepped up; has it become a nastier environment than what it was in the past, and harder to put up with for longer?
AYRES: I think what's going on is a lot of, you know, that nasty stuff that you see on social media and that more divisive ‑ often stuff that you see, you know, imported from overseas, like let's be honest about it, like some of the sort of extremist stuff you see, you know, if you see something on social media, nine times out of 10 it's not right.
Come on to your show, you know, see something in the newspaper, well, it's more likely to be credible, and you find people saying on social media things that they wouldn't dare to say to your face, and I reckon that's letting the country down. And that's why, you know, the PM, you know, Albo keeps saying to people, take the temperature down a bit, like let's see less of the anger and the rancour, and more pulling together as Australians. We've got big challenges come along, like the one that we're about to talk about where, you know, war in the Middle East does have an impact around the world, and it does affect Australians both over there, and you know, we've got a set of national interest things to deal with, let's make sure we're working together as Australians and communicating as clearly and directly as we can, not dodging the tough issues, but we've all got a responsibility, particularly in Canberra, to act in the national interest, and that's what we're determined to do.
BURNETT: Okay. Interesting. We'd love your thoughts on that too, 133 882, politics always been pretty brutal, but is it getting a little bit too nasty. Give me a call today, the text as well, 0487 999 882.
Tim, let's get into fuel. How much have we got here in Australia as of right now?
AYRES: So, in terms of petrol and diesel, I'll spare you the details about jet fuel, happy to deal with that if you like, 36 days' worth of petrol, that's about 1.56 billion litres of petrol, not million, billion litres of petrol on hand, 32 days of diesel, so 2.97 billion litres of diesel. We've got a bigger requirement for diesel, because you can imagine in the ag sector and mining and in heavy transport, diesel is absolutely the fuel that Australia needs.
Those are the largest on-hand reserves that we've had for at least 15 years, so in a generation. They're about the same today as they were at the start of the Iran conflict, about, you know, a week and a bit ago.
BURNETT: Right.
AYRES: We've been monitoring closely the ship arrivals and ship movements on their way to Australia, and nothing substantial has changed. Arrivals, we had the petroleum industry, Chris Bowen's been talking to them regularly, of course, but I and Chris and a number of other Ministers had them in for a discussion today. They are reporting ship arrivals happening exactly as expected.
All of this fuel that's on hand now is as a result of our Government imposing the minimum stockholding obligations, so we've applied additional requirements on industry in the national interest, and those reserves are held around about 80 per cent of them onshore in Australia, another 20 per cent as you can imagine are on ships that are within our exclusive economic zone, often moving from a refinery to another, you know, to another port or other capital city, but those are all held in Australia, in Australian infrastructure.
BURNETT: Okay. So, no change over the last week or so in terms of what we've got. Given what we've seen, though, and you know, things have changed significantly of late, and you know, internationally in terms of how politics is done over the last 12 months as well, do we need to see a change in approach to that baseline and what we do hold as a baseline here in Australia due to that uncertainty?
AYRES: Well, there's a short‑term and a long‑term question. The short immediate term question is that your listeners, who, you know, may be worried about these questions, there is no need for anybody to do anything different in terms of the way they're approaching their household or business fuel purchases.
There's been a bit of reckless communication going on out there, both on social media and from some participants in politics. I think what Australians want to see is a careful, sober, deliberate outline of the facts in the national interest.
Obviously, we are continuing to monitor the international situation very closely as the conflict goes on, you know, it would be good if it finished tomorrow. We'll continue monitoring closely and with partners, so our partners who have refining capability to trade with Australia, we're very focused on our engagement with them as well.
In the long‑term, well, we've delivered once in a generation new minimum stockholding obligations, we've announced a gas, a national gas reservation strategy that means Australian gas will, as a priority, be going to Australian households and Australian heavy industry in particular, as you can imagine.
I'm very focused on making sure that we're supporting ‑ keeping industry with gas that it requires, and we have the biggest pro‑manufacturing package of measures in Australian history, the Albanese Government and our Future Made in Australia plan, and we are absolutely focused on not just fuel security resilience, but manufacturing industry resilience and economic and strategic resilience as core to our economic vision for the future of the country.
BURNETT: So, you're saying that we've got enough. And I want to talk about diesel for a moment, because like many parts of Australia, here in WA, seeding just a couple of weeks away. But I had a couple of callers yesterday, and they'd driven up from the Great Southern over the last few days, and they were saying that a number of stations that they saw, and it was irregular, didn't have any diesel available, so is that due to the fact that they can't get supply, or are we starting to see rationing already at that level?
AYRES: And that's consistent with the reports that we're getting here in Canberra, that particularly where there are regional and remote retailers, and independent retailers, there have been some that have fallen short, and what is being reported in here is this is not ‑ as I outlined, the supply situation hasn't changed. There has been some different demand behaviour from some consumers and some retailers, and there have been spikes in demand. That's why we're saying to you know, we will continue to be focused on the supply questions, we're saying to Australians, work through these issues calmly, there is no need for anybody to do anything different to their normal buying pattern. In the agriculture sector, it's about diesel, but it's also about fertiliser.
BURNETT: Yep.
AYRES: And we had the fertiliser industry in. I'm very happy to report that Australia's only current fertiliser production facility, the facility currently owned by Dyno Nobel at Phosphate Hill, as a result of the Albanese Government's intervention into the Mount Isa Mine, a $600 million support package that we delivered with the Crisafulli Queensland Government, that that facility, they are closely related and feed off each other's feedstock, has now successfully been sold, so it will continue to produce Australian made fertiliser. And as you will know, the Perdaman facility will open soon in Western Australia, and that will make a very significant contribution.
We have sufficient fertiliser on hand as the planning season commences in many parts of the country, over the coming months, of course. We're not taking that for granted, we're not complacent about it, we're engaged about fertiliser supply that's required for May and June and July as well, so we will keep on the case on those issues, and what happened today really was getting all of the Australian industry together; farmers, fuel, fertiliser and the trucking and transport sector in together, because we're much better off as a country when people aren't pitted against each other, where they are working together to achieve the right national outcome.
BURNETT: Tim, a couple of quick ones, because I know time is tight, but it's a tough one, isn't it, when people here don't panic buy, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, isn't it; you know, there's a level of fear of missing out, we've seen that before in the past, and when you talk about 36 days and 32 days, you know, I suppose that's at the old measure, if there isn't panic buying, so I mean what's the realistic amount of fuel that we have on hand in terms of days with the panic buying that we're already starting to see and likely to continue?
AYRES: Well, just as a small measure of reassurance, I just say that the amounts, the 32 days of diesel hasn't materially changed since the beginning of the conflict. So while there's that ‑ you know, there's been some areas where, you know, we get reports that some consumers have bought four or five times more than they would normally buy, it actually, in terms of the national position, I understand there's some regional differences, but in the national position hasn't made a material difference.
So even though there's been some of that kind of activity, I just say to people the minimum stockholding has not materially changed -
BURNETT: Sure.
AYRES: - on both diesel and petrol terms, same story in jet fuel. Obviously, the Ministers of both Transport and Energy have been engaged with the major airlines as well on those questions. But we're watching it very closely. We're making sure the ACCC does its work too, you know, want to make sure petrol stations are pretty quick to jack up prices when there's a lift in the price of crude oil on the international indices are also just as quick to move prices down as those international prices move down.
So we are, you know, there's a number of levers we've got, both on the supply and the price side; want to keep working with people, it's a national challenge that we're much better off if we meet as Australians together.
BURNETT: Just one final one, and you talked price there; what's your modelling tell you about what we might be paying for petrol in two, three, four weeks' time if this drags on in the Middle East?
AYRES: Well, it's a market economy, and so you can't really make predictions about what prices are going to be like in two or three weeks' time, depending upon the shape of the conflict. I mean the Iranian regime -
BURNETT: But you can make assessments based on demand, what demand levels will be -
AYRES: Yeah, and I want to -
BURNETT: - and if the supply constricts.
AYRES: Yeah. Look, we've seen prices elevate very sharply over the course of the last week. So, if you project that forward, I'm not certain, I don't want to ‑ I just want to be fair dinkum about it. I'm not certain. We've seen the Iranian regime target 12 Gulf countries who are not participants in the original conflict because they are trying to create a kind of impact on global markets.
So our job as Australians is to keep our focus on the Australian national interest, keep our focus on the supply questions and meet these challenges with a bit of grim resolve and calmness and focus, and you know, if we need to adjust our approach, we will, but, you know, we demonstrated post the Ukraine crisis where we put caps on coal and gas prices, where we intervened -
BURNETT: I mean, I suppose ‑ yeah -
AYRES: - very hard on those -
BURNETT: - I suppose grim -
AYRES: - questions.
BURNETT: - grim resolve is one thing, but at the same time as a consumer, you're sitting there and you've got to pay what you've got to pay, right, and you know, if we're seeing these things go on that are completely out of our control and then finding that money in the budget every week, and you know, over here in Western Australia, rents are through the roof, property prices have never surged at a higher level, inflationary pressure continues to run so sticky, and we've seen that with the rate price that we've already seen and more tick to come, you can understand why, you know, gritty resolve, it just doesn't feel like much, does it?
AYRES: No, no, I agree.
BURNETT: It's because at the end of the day, it's coming -
AYRES: No, no, I -
BURNETT: - out of your back pocket.
AYRES: Yeah, I agree. And if you're ‑ you know, that's why we're absolutely focused on these questions, where despite efforts to distract the Government from all of those things, we are very focused on these cost-of-living questions, so yes, fuel, but also all of the cost‑of‑living measures that we can undertake -
BURNETT: Sure.
AYRES: - and that's going to be the focus of the Albanese Government over the coming months and years.
BURNETT: All right. Some challenges ahead. I really appreciate your time and thoughts on it today, Tim. Thank you.
AYRES: Thanks, mate, any time.
BURNETT: That is Tim Ayres, he is the Minister for Industry.
ENDS.
