Television Interview, Today Show

SUBJECTS: Geelong Viva Refinery Fire; Fuel Supply

SARAH ABO, HOST: Deputy PM, thanks so much for your time this morning. Geelong is of course your patch. This is a disaster for Australia's fuel supply, isn't it?

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: I wouldn't describe it as a disaster. I mean certainly the timing of this incident is terrible and it's a significant incident; I'm not seeking to play that down. But I was speaking with Scott Wyatt yesterday, the CEO of Viva. The company is actually relatively optimistic that the impact on fuel supply will be minimal, and that's really because of the part of the refinery which was most impacted was that which refines petrol, which is the fuel source that's under   or the fuel type - rather, that's under least pressure. So that is to say that diesel and jet fuel, that part of the refinery was less impacted. So, as I say, the company is actually pretty hopeful that the impact on this   on its output will be relatively minimal. I think what we can be, you know, really thankful for is that no one was hurt or injured in this. It happened at 11.15 at night. I think that's a blessing that there weren't more people around. So as a local community we're very thankful for that.

ABO: Yeah, absolutely. Look, I mean already at a low bar, when you say minimal, it's still a big impact, right? So please don't sugar coat this, Deputy PM. What will the impact be on the fuel that this refinery delivers to the market? You say it's only petrol, but there are so many motorists out there who are still relying on petrol.

MARLES: Well, that's right, but I mean petrol is the fuel type which is at the moment least affected –

ABO: Okay, but can you give us a number

MARLES: – in terms of all that's going –

ABO: – on how badly this will impact that?

MARLES: Well no, I can't give you a number and the company can't do that either. It's working through all of that. But what it is confident about is that –

ABO: But do you understand that, Deputy PM, when we're hearing numbers, it could be anywhere three weeks to three months that's alarming. We need certainty at this time, don't we?

MARLES: The company is confident that in terms of the impact on petrol specifically, which is the part of the refinery that's been most affected, that they will be able to cover that with imports where there is   and there are imports of petrol available. Diesel and jet fuel is the fuel types which are most impacted right now in the country, and in terms of what is refined here, that in turn has been least impacted. So as I say, they're still working through numbers. They don't have numbers that they can give you at the moment, but they are confident that the impact on fuel supply will be relatively minimal. What is driving events more significantly, Sarah, is obviously what's playing out in the Strait of Hormuz. So we're playing that down either, and we'll continue to monitor the situation in terms of whether the country stays at stage 2 or whether we move to different stages. I don't actually think that this fire of itself will have an impact on whether we move from one stage to the other.

ABO: Ok.

MARLES: The most significant thing which is going on right now is actually what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz, and we continue to monitor that very closely and we continue to do everything we can to secure fuel supplies for the country, which is of course why the Prime Minister has been in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.

ABO: And I will get to that, Deputy PM, but just off the back of this, will you rule out implementing fuel rationing?

MARLES: Well obviously we're not doing that. We've set up a National Fuel Security Plan, which has four stages which envisages worse scenarios, and we're not trying to sugar coat anything here. We're not at that point now. We're at stage 2. But we've been really upfront about the potential scenarios the country might face. That's why we've outlined stages 3 and 4. As I say, we are not there. Hopefully we never get there. But we don't know, and that is going to be less a function of what's happened in Geelong over the last 48 hours as it is what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz, and that's really what drives it.  

ABO: Okay, so there is still a chance of that. Look, this is being touted as a mechanical failure, the cause of this fire. Can you categorically rule out there wasn't sabotage at the refinery?

MARLES: I think we can rule that out. I mean the company's made really clear that that's not what they see as happened here. I mean they're still doing an assessment as to the exact cause of the fire, and it's not for me to go into that. But this is not sabotage.

ABO: How are we to become more self sufficient, Deputy PM, when we've only got two oil refineries in this country? I mean the PM has announced Australia will receive an additional 100 million litres of diesel from Brunei, South Korea, which is enough to last the country just over a day. That's not significantly reassuring.

MARLES: Well, I mean, if we're talking about the here and now, reaching agreements with our partners where we are significant suppliers of energy to them, you know, a country like Singapore is a major supplier of liquid fuels to Australia, I think that's a quarter of the fuel we use comes from Singapore, but a third of the gas they use comes from Australia. And so the point we made with Singapore is that we are energy partners in this moment and we need to have each other's back and we do. And really that's what we've been working through with both Brunei and Malaysia. I mean the longer-term nature of your question, I mean we wish there were more refineries in Australia. I mean during the last Coalition Government, four refineries shut down, when we came to government   when we left government in 2013 there were six, when we came back to government in 2022 there were two.

ABO: As if you wouldn't have shut them down as well if you were in power.

MARLES: Well, that's not what we would have done –

ABO: Ok.

MARLES: – Because we support Australian industry, Sarah. What we didn't do, as the former Coalition did, was to go to industry to lead Australia. And we saw a massive de industrialisation of Australia during the Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison years. We see that with refineries, we see it with the manufacturing of cars, and it's absolutely not what Labor does. So, we wish there were more refineries and we will be looking in terms of our Future Made in Australia agenda to how we can have more resilience and more self sufficiency, but we are left with what we have.

ABO: Yeah, I guess I thought –

MARLES: Right now we need to be making the most of the circumstances    

ABO: – the pivot was towards cleaner energy.

MARLES:  – and we are.

ABO: All right. Well, you're left with the promise of finding a solution to this. Richard Marles, thanks so much for joining us this morning, appreciate it.

ENDS