ABC Brisbane Mornings with Steve Austin

Steve Austin 

Ted O'Brien is the Shadow Foreign Affairs spokesperson. I spoke to Ted O'Brien earlier this morning in an in depth interview I asked him what the opposition thinks of the federal government's plan.

Ted O'Brien 

Look I think the decision by National Cabinet yesterday to have a four level plan is a sensible move, even if it does come a little bit late due to the Albanese government's flat footedness. I also welcome the Prime Minister's adoption of Coalition policy to cut the fuel excise and cut the heavy vehicle road user charge. I'm concerned they didn't take the opportunity to offset the cost of that in the budget, which means you are just going to see more money circling in the economy, which isn't good, but nevertheless, on providing that relief, the Coalition had been calling for it and I welcome it.

Steve Austin 

As economists are pointing out, it looks like the Federal Government's plan will keep inflation higher for longer. How would it have been different with your plan?

Ted O'Brien 

When we came out last week saying the Coalition wanted to see the fuel excise cut, the heavy vehicle road user charge cut, we put forward savings from the budget offsets and this just goes to straight financial discipline if you are going to spend more money as a government, you need to find that money in your existing budget. You can't just be lumping it on the Australian people through higher taxes or higher debt. That is only going to lead to rampant inflation, and that's higher interest rates. So and that's where I'm confused, Steve, because when we came out with this, we're very clear saying the Australian people needed some relief at the Bowser, it is going to cost money, and here is where you can get the money from. Here is an area where you can create savings in the budget to pay for it. Now, when the Albanese government decided to embrace this, they did the first part, they're prepared to provide relief, but they didn't do the second part. Which is to create a saving elsewhere in the budget to pay for it. And that is why, unfortunately, it's going to come at the risk of higher inflation at a very time when inflation is going through the roof, and the Reserve Bank is looking at, again, increasing rates in future meetings.

Steve Austin 

Will this allow service stations, petrol stations, diesel outlets, to significantly increase their profits Ted O'Brien? 

Ted O'Brien 

No, and this is why the government must be looking at what the price is at servos across the country. It needs to be passed on immediately to the consumer, to the average person who's filling up their car. At the moment, if you fill up your car, you're probably paying about 52 cents a liter in tax to the government. So what this does is it cuts that in half. And so about 26 cents a liter comes off. That should come off immediately, once this becomes effective.

Steve Austin 

My guest is Ted O'Brien. Ted O'Brien is the Federal LNP member for the electorate of Fairfax here in Queensland and is also the Shadow spokesperson on Foreign Affairs. Ted O'Brien, the Treasurer of Australia, Jim Chalmers, describes it the situation like this.

Jim Chalmers 

"This is a temporary global oil shock, and this part of our cost of living relief is temporary as well."

Steve Austin 

How do you see that? Do you see it as a temporary global oil shock? Given what we're not hearing from overseas? 

Ted O'Brien 

We hope it's a temporary shock. And I think everybody is hoping that Steve, regardless of politics or anything, nobody wants to see this go on for long. And that is why I think everybody is really wanting to see the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which is holding back supply and having this enormous shock around the world, including here at home. How long that lasts? Though, nobody knows. And of course, even if the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately, this is going to have a long tail in terms of it will continue to sting when it comes to fuel supply and prices. But the sooner it it comes off the better. And that is why I think the Treasurer is right in also saying that this relief should therefore be temporary. The three month period was proposed by the Coalition. The government has adopted that so it has no criticism from me. 

Steve Austin 

The Treasurer also describes it as a quote, 'cost of living measure' unquote. 

Ted O'Brien 

Is that accurate? It's only partly accurate. It's accurate in that it provides relief immediately at the Bowser, when you're filling up your car, you do get some money off. That's a good thing. Where it's not accurate is because they have not offset. The spend, as in, they haven't found savings in the budget to pay for it. It basically means that you are going to see inflation continue to go up, and as inflation goes up, well, of course, that hurts everybody, not least those who have mortgages, because interest rates go up, and so this is where, unfortunately, They've only done half the job. Here, they have provided some relief, but it's still going to hurt everybody, because they had, they have failed again to find savings in the budget to pay for it. And this has been an ongoing criticism from me, from a lot of my colleagues, a lot of economists around the country, about the way the Albanese government runs the books. They keep spending. It's the highest spending government in 40 years. And there's a reason why inflation keeps going up. So too does interest rates. That is government spending is out of control. Unfortunately, by providing this relief, they haven't found savings elsewhere, they just keep on spending.

Steve Austin 

My guest is Ted O'Brien, the Federal LNP member for Fairfax, market failure is how Chris Bowen, Australia's energy minister, described it. Is that right? Is it market failure, or is it something else due to war?

Ted O'Brien 

I think, I think what we are seeing here is a policy failure coming home to roost. Steve, I don't I don't doubt for a moment that the conflict in Iran has triggered the most acute energy crisis we have seen for a long time, but that energy crisis has been growing now for a good four years. Chris Bowen might try to just blame what's happening in Iran, but that's not true. Chris Bowen has been on the world stage calling for an end to all use of fossil fuels. That has been his argument. He has put in place policies in Australia to also end the use of fossil fuels. Now suddenly we have an external shock, and we are left exposed because there is a risk we do not have sufficient fossil fuels. And so the government is now scrambling, doing the opposite of what they have been seeking to do over the last four years. So nobody would blame the up and easy government for what has happened in Iran, but the trigger that Iran has brought on has, you know, brought home to roost, I believe, a very bad failure of energy policy in Australia that's been brewing for some time.

Steve Austin 

What should we doing to improve our longer term fuel security then, I mean, surely, I mean, this is not the first time we've had an oil price shock in Australia. We're experienced at this, or if we should be, we've for decades now. You know, we've, we've, we've been downgrading our resilience in this area. I mean both sides, your side of politics as well, the conservative side as well. So what should we be doing about our long term fuel security?

Ted O'Brien 

Steve, I think it starts with acknowledging a few things. One is that energy security really is national security, and if you do not have energy security, your economy collapses. We're not seeing a collapse in the Australian economy now, but we're seeing early signs of what could come down the path if, if this continues. So that's the first point. Secondly, then it's to say, well, we need to leverage what we have. We have an abundance of resources. When it comes to energy resources, Australia has more energy resources per capita than any other country in the world, probably with the exception of Saudi Arabia.

Steve Austin 

Do you include oil in that?

Ted O'Brien 

Yeah, I do. I do. I mean, oil is not our strong suit compared to gas, but we certainly still have oil under the ground. We're not drilling, we're not extracting, we're not developing. And so this is the problem, the way that we are at the moment, we're at the end of a very long supply chain, waiting to receive our resources, when, in fact, we are probably the second most resource rich country in the world on a per capita basis, so we need to be doing more with what we have. We are blessed with an abundance of energy, and I find this, Steve, when I am traveling internationally, I barely have a conversation, whether it be my previous conversation, portfolios of Treasury or energy, or even now in foreign affairs, where other countries don't immediately bring up our resources, countries are jealous of Australia for having so much in our energy resources. The problem is. Is we are not using them, we are not leveraging them. That is leaving us weaker as an economy, poorer as the Australian people, and it also means we are less independent. We should be fiercely independent when it comes to our ability to energize our country, but we're not. We're becoming more and more reliant on foreign supply chains. We're becoming weaker as an economy, and that's the problem. We've got to leverage what we have. 

Steve Austin 

The Prime Minister yesterday pointed out that the problem isn't just the problem of the government, but your current leader, Angus Taylor, was virtually negligent when he was Australia's Energy Minister a few years back. Your own side, Senator Jim Nolan, when he was alive, was warning Scott Morrison's government about how little supply Australia had. Angus Taylor, your now leader, was Energy Minister then, and he kept the situation the status quo. It got worse under your side of politics.

Ted O'Brien 

Well, actually, Steve, I mean, it doesn't surprise me, of course, that Anthony Albanese would immediately, in the midst of the crisis, trying to trying to get things sorted. 

Steve Austin 

Angus Taylor was an Energy Minister under the previous government.

Ted O'Brien 

Yeah, but if you do look at, I defend Angus with this, because if you do look at what Angus introduced, he introduced a range of measures that have put us in a far better position than we otherwise would have been. So we had a whole bunch of refineries which were closing, including those which had been announced under the Labor former Labor government. Angus Taylor was able to arrest that decline to ensure that the two remaining refineries in Australia, including one Lytton in Brisbane, there, remained operating. If Angus Taylor did not intervene and take that action, we would have no refineries in this country. He also introduced mandatory levels of fuel that was required in Australia that didn't exist, but it does exist now. Now there are a whole bunch of other measures he introduced to ensure there was some degree of storage, more more storage available than was previously the case, and over the last four years, has any of that been built on? Has any further initiative been taken by the Albanese government? No, not a thing. Not a thing. So they're leaning entirely on what on what Angus Taylor actually put in place a few years ago. So I'm very defensive of that. I think Angus Taylor actually proved to do the right thing when he was energy minister. 

Steve Austin 

My guest is Federal LNP member, Ted O'Brien, this is 612 ABC, Brisbane. Ted O'Brien, the Queensland Premier, went to national cabinet yesterday, demanding a national dashboard. It didn't happen. Wasn't supported by the other states. It would seem. How do you see that suggestion? It doesn't change how much fuel we have. It doesn't change the price. Doesn't make things easier. It was an unusual demand by Queensland's Premier, and he got rolled. Give me your thoughts on that, please.

Ted O'Brien 

I think David Christopher was right to call for a dashboard. And so the problem we have at the moment is, on one hand, the Albanese government says there is plenty of fuel in Australia. Meanwhile, we've got around 600.. 

Steve Austin 

Other people outside of politics. Say there's plenty of fuel in Australia. 

Ted O'Brien 

And so let's, let's, let's take him at his word, and let's say he's right.

Steve Austin 

Steve, so no one says we're going to run out of fuel. No one says that. 

Ted O'Brien 

That's not my argument. So let's accept what the Prime Minister says. There's plenty of fuel in Australia, a lot more than there was in before the conflict started. Meanwhile, you've got 600 service stations without fuel. So the problem is that fuel is not getting to where it needs to be. Now, the government has the ability, like the legal ability to know exactly where all the stock of fuel is, again, Angus Taylor. Angus Taylor introduced laws to enable this so the federal government has the ability to provide transparency. And this is where a dashboard comes into play, where you can basically show the Australian people and governments where the fuel is now. This allows an active Minister to look at the dashboard and say, Well, okay, we don't have fuel in central Queensland in these three, four areas, but we have a lot of fuel over over that section. So pick up the phone, ring the fuel companies and say, I see you've got ample fuel there. We need it to move it from A to B.

Steve Austin 

But the fuel companies already know that. They get the orders. They know exactly who's asking for fuel. 

Ted O'Brien 

But Steve, if the supply chain isn't working, this is where you need a Minister to have the strength and the work ethic to do the work. So I'm disappointed they did not back in David Crisafulli's very sensible, practical proposal of having a dashboard that everybody can see, so that the minister can do his job. At the federal level. Call into the fuel companies and basically say, I want that fuel going from A to B, the fuel companies need to be answerable to the Australian...

Steve Austin 

But, that just adds an extra layer of bureaucracy to what they already know. They're already getting phone calls to Ted O'Brien. That just is an extra layer of bureaucracy.

Ted O'Brien 

Well, Steve. With due respect, I don't think it does because do they get phone calls now today? Sure they do. They get phone calls from from every, every punter on the street who'll drive by a survey and say, oh, gee, you know I'm gonna, I'm gonna ring and give that company a blast. This allows efficiency, where you have Chris Bowen as the energy minister who can make calls based on that dashboard. Now, at the moment, all right, I get phone calls from everybody would improve efficiency. All right.

Steve Austin 

John Blackburn, consultant in the area of national security, Deputy Chief of Air Force of Australia these days. He's chairman of the Institute of integrated Economic Research in Australia. He said yesterday to the ABC crew that we need to consider restrictions on fuel. 

John Blackburn 

There seems to be some really strange thing about don't mention that we might go to rations. I mean, many people aren't really I was still alive in the 1970s I was alive in the 1970s when we rationed last time. But if we say to people, If this situation continues, we'll do everything. We kind of maximize. You're not going to run out of fuel. Don't panic about this, but we may actually have to step in and control it. Australians are adults. Don't pretend that that world doesn't exist, because we may end up doing that if we have to. 

Steve Austin 

Is he right? Might we end up needing to ration fuel, Ted O'Brien? 

Ted O'Brien 

Well, he is right in saying that Australians are adults and they should just be told the truth. I wasn't privy, of course, to what the Premiers and the Prime Minister were advised in national cabinet yesterday, but I believe that through the four stage plan they've released, they are keeping the option open to ration fuel. And so I think it is in there. The problem is they're not just speaking openly with the Australian people. And I don't know why, Steve. If indeed, it is an option that needs to be put on the table, just just tell the Australian people that. Because here's the problem, if you're not honest with the Australian people, you can't blame the Australian people for for buying up big early. And this was the problem. The first few weeks of this crisis, the Albanese government was denying their was any crisis, but at the same time pointing the finger at the Australian people saying. Oh, you're panic buying. You're panic buying. But the Australian people knew the truth that there were problems. And then it took two weeks before the Albanese government said, Oh, actually, I think this might be a crisis after all. So what's the answer here? It's. Never going to be perfect at times of crisis, but you have to trust the Australian people. Transparency, transparency, transparency. So my answers to why we need a dashboard are exactly the same to questions of whether or not there needs to be any rationing. Let's at least be honest with the Australian people.