Portfolio — 24 March 2026

The Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh, used a parliamentary debate on 24 March to lay out the government's three-part response to fuel supply pressures arising from the Middle East conflict: appointing a fuel security coordinator, releasing 20 per cent of national fuel reserves, and directing ACCC anticompetitive conduct investigations against major fuel companies [TA-260324-house-a9c2a02c99ed:s011].

The most operationally significant announcement was legislation to double the maximum ACCC penalty for fuel-price violations from $50 million to $100 million, flagged for introduction to the House the following day. The Assistant Minister explicitly benchmarked the new threshold against the $10 million ceiling that applied under the former coalition government, sharpening the political contrast.

On supply fundamentals, the Assistant Minister cited reserves exceeding 1.6 billion litres of petrol, 800 million litres of jet fuel, and 2.7 billion litres of diesel held across more than 90 terminals nationwide — figures presented to establish that the reserve release is drawn from a substantial base rather than a precautionary buffer. The government's $1 billion investment in low-carbon liquid fuels modernisation was invoked as evidence of a refinery-retention strategy, set directly against the closure of four major refineries during the Leader of the Opposition's time as energy minister.

The broader framing the Assistant Minister advanced positions fuel-supply resilience as a domestic coordination exercise integrating sovereign refining capability, strategic reserve management, and competition enforcement — a model designed to absorb international price shocks without passing the full cost burden to motorists [TA-260324-house-a9c2a02c99ed:s011].

The three elements are presented as mutually reinforcing: reserves buffer immediate disruption, the coordinator manages allocation, and the ACCC penalty regime deters opportunistic pricing. The pending legislation will be the near-term test of whether that enforcement signal translates into a durable deterrent.