Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Act 2017 (Cth)
Friday 25 August 2017 @ 2.37 p.m. | Legal Research
After passing its way through the Houses of Parliament, the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Act 2017 has been assented. The Act will establish a mandatory reporting regime for fuel information. According to the Act’s explanatory memorandum, the information collected will be used to monitor energy security, facilitate compliance with international reporting and stockholding obligations, and enable the publication of aggregate fuel statistics for the use of business, investors, academics and government.
Background
Historically, the Australian government has been able to produce statistics on the production, refining, import, export, consumption and end-of-month stocks of petroleum and fuels. The statistics have been produced by collating information collected from businesses on a voluntary basis for the last forty years. However, as the Minister for the Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg points out in his second reading speech to the Bill, in recent years:
“the proportion of businesses contributing to the statistics has declined, while the fuel market has become increasingly competitive and diverse in both the sources of fuel and the types of fuel available.”
He goes on to explain that as a result of this decline, the coverage, usefulness and accuracy of the statistics have also been reduced.
Mr Frydenberg emphasised the importance of producing accurate statistics as part of Australia’s commitment to return to compliance with its obligation “as a member of the International Energy Agency to hold fuel stocks equivalent to 90 days of the previous year's average daily net oil imports.”
Mandatory Reporting
According to the explanatory memorandum:
My Frydenberg assured that the reporting requirements to be introduced by subordinate legislation will stay up to date with changes in the market and technology. He further assured that personal and commercially sensitive information provided to the government would receive extensive protections. He gave as an example the Act’s prohibition against the “publication of information that could identify an individual or enable commercial-in-confidence information to be determined.”
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Sources:
Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Act 2017, Bill, and Explanatory Material as published on TimeBase's LawOne
