Portfolio — 12 March 2026

Minister Bowen used five separate parliamentary responses on 12 March to present Australia's fuel position as secure — citing holdings of 36 days of petrol, 29 days of jet fuel and 32 days of diesel — while announcing a concrete operational intervention: a 60-day sulphur-content relaxation under the Fuel Quality Standards Act to release 100 million extra litres per month from Ampol into the domestic supply.

The minister directed that additional supply toward regional Australia and the spot market, with Queensland's Lytton refinery a named priority. The government also used the session to draw a direct contrast with the Opposition, citing its vote against the Minimum Stockholding Obligation amendments as the legislative backdrop to the current crisis response. Two acquittal entries — covering fuel-supply international coordination signals — remain absent from the note sentences; the record for those exchanges may be incomplete.