Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Strategic Reserve) Bill 2026

Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Minister for Trade and Tourism, Special Minister of State and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (19:34): The bill does what it says it does. It allows EFA to purchase oil on the spot market to quickly ensure that we have sufficient petrol, diesel and airline fuel. I think Senator Canavan does not accurately reflect the approach that the Australian government has taken to this industry.

I make the observation that the Barossa project in the Northern Territory, offshore, has gone ahead under this government and has started producing gas out of the wells. Similarly, with the Beetaloo, the first production of gas in the Beetaloo is already flowing. One day we might get gas supplies out of Narrabri, one of Santos's projects.

The reason there's no oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight is a series of companies which had exploration rights and discovered oil in the Great Australian Bight made commercial decisions that it wasn't economic to proceed. If you look at decisions that Chevron made, they had licences down there. I think Exxon was down there at one stage.

I think the Norwegian state oil company— Senator Canavan: Equinor. Senator FARRELL: Equinor—thank you, Senator Canavan—was the last one to pick up drilling licences from, I think, Chevron and Exxon. They simply made a decision that it wasn't economic to proceed with those explorations.

They weren't government decisions. The state government and, to the best of my knowledge, the federal government had given those companies all the approvals they needed, but they made decisions, based on their own economic interests, not to proceed. As I say, Barossa is now producing gas.

Beetaloo is producing gas. I was recently at Santos's operations in the Cooper Basin; I think they're continuing to produce gas and, to the best of my knowledge, they are expanding their gas operations. In Western Australia we continue to produce significant amounts of gas.

So I don't think Senator Canavan's characterisation of the Australian government's position is at all accurate.