Statement from One Nation MP for Mirani Stephen Andrew
Australia’s largest oil refinery, BPs Kwinana Refinery in Western Australia, said last month it was closing and would ‘transition’ to an ‘import facility’ by mid 2021.
The shutdown wipes out more than one-fifth of our fuel-making capabilities and leaves 600 workers without a job.
The country will then have just three remaining fuel refineries left, despite having seven only a decade ago.
The three that are left are said to be “bleeding multimillion-dollar losses”.
A 2014 NRMA Report has predicted that by 2030 all of Australia’s oil refineries will be closed.
What a change from twenty years ago, when Australia had ten refineries, which were easily able to meet ALL the country’s domestic fuel demands.
Today, 90% of our fuel and 80% of our crude are imported from Asia.
In response to the shutdown of Kwinana, the Federal Minister for Energy, Angus Taylor, said there was nothing to be concerned about and that it would have no “impact on Australian fuel supplies”.
Who does he think he’s kidding? Certainly not farmers, or the military I imagine.
There is in fact plenty to be concerned about.
Not least because a large amount of our oil imports come from China, a country that the Government has a fast deteriorating relationship with.
Then there is the falling number of oil-exporting nations with less than 19 countries able to still export 500,000 barrels a day.
None of them are near Australia, and most are in unstable regions or, like China, are on bad terms with our Government (Russia, Iran).
Since Covid, many global carriers say they are seriously weighing up whether it is worth including Australia on their routes given its distance from supply lanes. They are also pretty cranky at the way we treated their ships and crews in 2020, which some international bodies likened to ‘cruel and inhumane’ torture at one point and a global humanitarian crisis at another.
How would the Military cope if there was another world lockdown, when 100 per cent of our fuel needs relied on imports?
And what would the Government do should an unfriendly power decide to blockade our fuel supplies?
Would the Minister be concerned then I wonder?
