Shadow Portfolio — 24 March 2026

Senator Kovacic used Question Time to press the government on a compounding fertiliser and ammonia supply crisis, targeting the Minister for Industry and Innovation over simultaneous domestic production outages and a blocked import route [TA-260324-senate-dd516f85acd4:s264]. Australia's largest ammonia plant — the Yara Pilbara facility near Karratha — is expected to remain offline for up to two months, and a second ammonia manufacturer at Kooragang in New South Wales is also down.

Senator Kovacic pressed for details on what steps the government has taken to restore operations and what contingency arrangements exist to manage the resulting supply chain exposure [TA-260324-senate-dd516f85acd4:s264 TA-260324-senate-dd516f85acd4:s265].

The strategic centre of the attack was a direct conflict Senator Kovacic placed on the Senate record between two government-side positions: the Minister for Foreign Affairs told the Senate that the majority of required fertiliser is already on the water or in the country, while the National Farmers' Federation president has warned that winter crop yields could be halved if in-crop urea requirements cannot be met after May [TA-260324-senate-dd516f85acd4:s266].

Senator Kovacic used that gap to demand a guarantee on fertiliser and ammonium nitrate supply for both farmers and miners — a formulation that deliberately spans the agricultural and resources sectors and widens the government's exposure beyond any single portfolio. The opposition's framing positions the government as caught between an optimistic Foreign Affairs assurance and an urgent on-ground warning from an industry peak body, with no credible contingency publicly on offer.