With the continued uncertainty of supply from the Middle East, Australia’s fuel reserves are more important than ever. What’s the scam?
The scam is that the Australian Institute of Petroleum (AIP) convinced the Senate we don’t need much. That was back in 2014/15, during a Senate inquiry into ‘Australia’s transport energy resilience and sustainability’.
The AIP is a fuel industry lobby group that told the Senate, “Any level of emergency stockholdings for Australia over and above normal commercial requirements cannot be justified on energy security grounds …”
AIP members include Ampol, Mobil, BP and Viva, operator of the Geelong refinery, and politicians, especially ministers, love hearing from well-funded industry lobby groups. They bring their expertise to Canberra to share, along with donations and other perks.
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Open in new tab Many politicians and ministers have never worked in the commercial sector and so don’t quite appreciate that when industry groups present the parliament or ministerial wing with solutions,
they’re not solutions that are in the national interest, they’re solutions in the members’ interest.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the "Transparency Warrior."