Australia news live: Chris Bowen says Geelong refinery fire ‘not great timing’; Coalition unimpressed with defence spending promises | Australia news

Fire officer says officials haven’t detected any contaminants spreading from blaze

Earlier this morning, Fire Rescue Victoria assistant chief fire officer, Mick McGuinness, provided an update to ABC Radio Melbourne. Shortly before 7am, he said about 50 firefighting vehicles were continuing to fight the blaze in the Mogas (motor gasoline) plant section of the refinery.

This fire has been quite large overnight. It is still burning at the moment, and we would still declare it as not yet under control. … And the fire is mainly being fed by various types of hydrocarbon fuels. So predominantly liquid petrol … and also some gas and vapours that are feeding this fire at the moment.

McGuinness said firefighters there was no contaminants being spread as a result of the blaze:

We were concerned with the smoke that was coming off this fire, so our initial reactions were to get an alert message out to the community. We’ve since been able to have our specialist hazardous materials teams come in from locally Geelong and also in Melbourne and set up some atmospheric monitoring equipment and do a lot of sensing and sampling of not only the atmosphere but also the fire water runoff that we’re using to contain the fire. We’ve been able to determine … that we haven’t detected any sort of contaminants there.

He said the refinery’s sensors were damaged so it was unclear how much fuel remained to keep the fire burning:

We’re predicting that this still could burn for another three or four hours, if not longer. But we are starting to see a reduction in the intensity of the fire, which is an indication that the depressurising of the systems and the pipe work is occurring and that we will see a lesser amount of fuel being available to feed the fire. And of course, that allows us to continue to cool that area more rapidly and then be able to get crews in there to look at how we can start to isolate pipe work and valve systems.

Geelong mayor says refinery fire shows how ‘very fragile’ energy security is

The mayor of Geelong, Stretch Kontelj, said the intensity of the fire at the refinery has subsided “significantly”, but the blaze will still be burning for a “couple more hours”.

Kontelj said the refinery was a significant part of Australia’s fuel supply, and the incident would now be a “national event”. He told RN Breakfast:

It shows that we have very fragile, very thin energy security platform when it comes to refinery, only the two refineries left. And as mayor, I’ve been calling this out since being elected back in 2024, that Viva is not only a significant employer and corporate citizen for Geelong, but it has a significance for Victoria and Australia.

And it just shows that we, as a country, need to invest more in this type of capability.

Union says all workers safe and evacuation from refinery ‘went to plan’

Ronnie Hayden, the state secretary of the Victorian branch of the Australian Workers’ Union spoke to ABC Radio Melbourne about the Corio refinery blaze. He said between 50 and 100 workers were on site when the fire broke out about 11pm last night.

Hayden said the evacuation “went to plan”:

These guys have been highly trained in emergency response and emergency evacuation, and I think that’s the main reason why there were no fatalities.

He said while the fire is still burning it “should be out within the next couple of hours”. Once it is, workers and authorities will be able to better understand the impact:

We don’t know until we actually get in. We’re just speculating. I’d be surprised if we weren’t shut down for a few days, but it could be a lot longer. It could get it done quicker. We just need to get in and have a look.

Hayden added its a “70-year-old facility” that has always required regular maintenance:

Our health and safety rep so members are out there, and they identify the issues, and most of them get fixed up pretty quickly.

The Coalition has responded to the news that Labor will spend an extra $53bn on defence over the next decade, bringing total spending to about 2.3% to 2.4% of GDP by 2033.

The defence minister, Richard Marles, will outline the plans and release a new national defence strategy on Thursday.

But his shadow minister, James Paterson, is unimpressed.

“The Coalition will carefully review the full details of the new National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program once it is released,” Paterson said.

But one thing is already clear: accounting tricks don’t make Australians safer. Counting money we’ve always spent on things like military pensions as defence spending is a desperate attempt by the Albanese government to pretend they are finally taking our strategic circumstances seriously when they are not.

Australia needs real increases in actual defence spending today to put tangible capability into the hands of war fighters to protect our country. Anything less is an insult to our men and women in uniform and fails to heed the lessons of Ukraine and Iran.

The energy minister, Chris Bowen, is speaking about the refinery blaze. He said the refinery is still producing diesel and jet fuel, at reduced capacities. Bowen told ABC News this morning:

Obviously, the fire is still burning so we can’t make any final conclusions about the impact. It’s not a positive development. It will have an impact. I’m sure that petrol production will continue but it may be impacted for some time.

He said the fire was “not great timing”, adding it remained important that people only buy the fuel they need, “no more, no less”, in light of the incident.

Bowen added that it appeared to be an accident at this point.

Look, this is not a positive development in Geelong. Let’s not pretend somehow that this won’t have some sort of impact.

But as I said, we will carefully, methodically, manage it with the refinery and I and Viva will update Australians with the very best and latest information as and when we determine the full impact.

Geelong refinery supplies 50% of Victoria’s fuel, and 10% of Australia’s in total

Viva Energy’s refinery in Geelong supplies about 50% of Victoria’s fuel, and 10% of Australia’s in total, according to the company’s website.

The refinery is just one of two remaining in Australia, and employs more than 1,100 people. The other is Ampol’s Lytton refinery in Brisbane. Both rely on government support to stay open.

Viva Energy says on it’s website:

The refinery can process up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day, manufacturing petrol, diesel, LPG, jet fuel, avgas and Low Aromatic Fuel to support the Federal Government’s petrol-sniffing prevention program.

These include being Australia’s only manufacturer of hydrocarbon solvents, marine fuel oil, low aromatic fuel, avgas, bitumen and high-quality plastic feedstock used to create food packaging, medical equipment and polymer banknotes.

Good morning, Nick Visser here to take things over. Let’s get to it.

The Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, defended the Coalition’s planned crack down on immigrations as “fair and reasonable” and that migrants would understand the policy.

Asked on 7.30 last night how Australia’s migrant communities would see the plan, Canavan referred to the “rigour” of the naturalisation process his Italian grandparents went through in the 1950s and his own publicised section 44 high court citizenship saga (which he said ultimately proved him to be a “dinky-di Aussie”). He said:

It’s fair and reasonable that we set high standards to join the club of Australians and I’m sure migrants here today want to see that …

We have a Government that has put its head in the sand now and has not listened to the Australian people that clearly want change.

Canavan claimed support for Australia’s migration program is “falling off a cliff.”

When the show’s host, Sarah Ferguson, asked again about the specific wording of a policy described as “discriminatory”, Canavan said:

I think we should discriminate on values …

We shouldn’t discriminate on colour, religion, sexuality, gender, but surely … we should discriminate on people who don’t support democracy, who profess support for terrorism or violence, who don’t believe in equality between male and female genders. People who have those views I don’t want them in our country.

Canavan reached for a literary quote: “Having good fences make for good neighbours”.

Ferguson noted:

I’ll comment that the Robert Frost line in that poem was delivered in irony.

But we’ll return to that another day along with many other questions, thank you for joining us …

Fire crews continue to battle an out-of-control blaze at a Geelong refinery that broke out late last night.

Residents in areas south of the Viva oil refinery in Corio – one of Australia’s two remaining refineries – have been warned to stay inside to avoid smoke.

Geelong’s mayor, Stretch Kontelj, told ABC Melbourne radio this morning that the fire was “unprecedented”.

“Speaking to the management, no one can recall an incident of this magnitude either,” he said shortly before 6am on Thursday. “But from reports, it is coming under control.”

The refinery said no one had been reported injured so far, and that there was no immediate impact on fuel supplies.

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the best of the overnight stories and then Nick will take over.

Matt Canavan has defended the Coalition’s planned immigration shake-up as “reasonable and fair” and said it would be accepted as such by migrants already in Australia. More coming up.

Residents in parts of Geelong have been warned to take shelter due to smoke from an out-of-control fire at the Viva oil refinery in Corio – we’ll be bringing you more details soon.