Bowen confirms number of fuel stations dry across Australia

MINISTER for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen told parliament on Thursday there are more than 170 service stations in New South Wales without diesel fuel, and more than 330 across Australia with dry diesel pumps.

“New South Wales today has 178 with no diesel, 48 with a total stock out,” Mr Bowen said.

“Queensland has 55 with no diesel, 33 with no regular unleaded. Victoria has 45 with no diesel, down 20, and 72 with no unleaded, down 70.

“South Australia has nine with no diesel, 10 with no unleaded. Western Australia has 40 with no diesel, 14 with no unleaded. Tasmania has five with no diesel and nine with some sort of outage.

“No outages in the Northern Territory are attributable to a lack of fuel supply. In the ACT, currently, there are two with no diesel and one with no unleaded.

“I’m advised these shortages in the ACT are typically dealt with within the hour,” he said.

Mr Bowen maintained supply to Australia remains “strong”.

“Of the six ships that we informed the nation had been cancelled on the weekend, all have been replaced with alternative supplies from alternative countries and at least three other spot cargo offers have been confirmed and are on their way to Australia,” he said.

“That’s a good thing. And our two refineries are working full pelt with all their production exclusively for Australian use, and that is certainly the way it should be in this situation.

“That is not to say – as the government has always recognised – that there aren’t real shortages, particularly in regional areas, that need to be addressed,” Mr Bowen said.

Federal Member for Parkes, Jamie Chaffey, said there is very clearly a supply chain issue.

“Even after this Labor government acknowledged there was a problem, it has not done enough to fix it,” Mr Chaffey said.

“Australia’s a big country. We need fuel not only to travel it but to get our goods to market, to access emergency care, to work on machinery and to keep our country running.

“Independent fuel distributors are critical for the supply to communities across the Parkes electorate, whether that is supplying our towns, our villages and our cities or is bulk fuel supply directly to the farm gate, transport companies or industry.

“The Albanese government has chosen to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the calls from these businesses over the past three weeks as they plead for assistance to keep the fuel flowing and their businesses solvent,” he said.