WHILE it seems like months ago that concerns about Australia’s fuel supply was leading every news bulletin, the structural problems that led to the shortage still remain and industry cannot afford to get complacent.

That is the message from Andrew Henderson, who was announced as the new chair of the Red Meat Advisory Council earlier this week. Mr Henderson has put a lot of his efforts into highlighting Australia’s reliance on imports and the impact trade disruptions can have on Australia’s food security.

Andrew Henderson, new chair of RMAC

Speaking on this week’s episode of The Week in Beef, Mr Henderson said the structural problems that led to the shortage remain.

“There has been something like $14.8 billion made available through the Commonwealth budget for various different fuel and fertilizer measures, which has been welcomed broadly,” he said.

“The challenge with that is you can’t build additional fuel storage and associated infrastructure overnight.

“A lot of us tend to fall into the trap of becoming pretty comfortable when things settle down and your perspective moves on to the next crises. But the challenge is making sure that we actually solve the problems that the initial fuel crisis revealed to us.”

Relationships in Canberra essential

A big part of the attraction to appointing Mr Henderson to the RMAC role is his extensive experience in Canberra. He said maintaining good working relationships in the halls of parliament was essential to solving the fuel security issues.

“I think the relationship across industries is broadly positive, there has been some setbacks over the last couple of years that we still need to navigate and there definitely will be challenges in the future,” he said.

“Industry priorities don’t always marry up with government priorities. Where you can’t agree or where you can’t get a win, you still need to be able to have a conversation on the other side of that and maintain a relationship.”

Capitalising on more understanding

Asked whether he thought the Government understood the challenges the industry faced with fuel security, Mr Henderson said the understanding has definitely improved this year.

“We function very well as an industry and it is not until some shock like this comes along that reveals the extent to which you are vulnerable to a critical input like fuel,” he said.

“I think it even made a lot of people in our industry go ‘I had never stopped and thought what would happen if the fuel truck doesn’t turn up next week’.

“I would say although the understanding of agriculture’s need for fuel, particularly diesel, is much better understood than it certainly was back in March.”

He said the red meat industry was coming into an important period in trying to resolve some of these issues.

“We are living in such a volatile time in global history and we just simply can’t afford not to work together to try and deliver the outcomes that we need,” he said.