Interview with Ashleigh Gillon, Sky News

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA 
WEDNESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2025

SUBJECTS: Low carbon liquid fuels announcement, Macquarie Point precinct.

ASHLEIGH GILLON, HOST: And joining us for more now live is the Agricultural Minister, Julie Collins. Minister, thank you for your time. We appreciate it. Tell us more about the opportunity that this announcement presents for the ag sector. As I understand it, these biofuels can be made from canola, tallow, sugar. What’s the plan?  

JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Thanks Ashleigh, and good afternoon to your viewers today. This is an important announcement for Australia’s agricultural producers. We already send product overseas that’s turned into biofuels. This is about having biofuels here in Australia and having that value adding and that processing actually happening here in Australia, so Australians can have the benefit of those jobs here in Australia. But we can also, of course, ramp up in terms of the amount of grains and the products, agricultural products, that can go into the biofuels. This is a great opportunity for jobs in Australia for our Australian farmers, but importantly, it also helps us reduce our emissions and helps us reach net zero. 

GILLON: And so why does the sector, though, need this leg up? More than a billion dollars, it’s a significant investment. Has there not been enough demand so far for these cleaner fuels to make that economic case stack up for the private sector to be able to do that themselves?

COLLINS: There are a range of projects and proposals already around the country, and what this is about is about making sure that we give them a kick start so that they can get going and be viable. It’s also about making sure that Australia has access to the latest technology then when it comes to producing biofuels. What we want to do is work with the sector and the industry to make sure we get the design right, and to make sure, of course, that we also, alongside that, develop a bioenergy feedstock strategy so that we make sure that we have the fuel stock into the future for our biofuels industry. We are going to take some time to get this right, but we are going to hasten quickly, and we want some of this money flowing and the grants flowing from next financial year. 

GILLON: I’ve seen the government’s release on this today, it really talks up the prospect of using cleaner fuels for plane travel as well. That’s a pretty long way off though isn’t it? Most experts seem to point out that the take-up of clean fuels in the aviation sector has been pretty poor so far, sustainable aviation fuel costing three to five times more than jet fuel. It seems like we’re a long way off from that? 

COLLINS: What we want to do is make sure Australia is at the forefront of latest technologies and make sure that we can help those hard to abate sectors reduce their emissions. Certainly we’re seeing overseas that biofuels, particularly sustainable aviation fuel, is going to be viable into the future and what we want to do is support Australian industry and Australian production. If there’s biofuels that can be made overseas, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be making it here in Australia using great Australian product and putting that product into fuels, and creating those jobs and those industries here for Australians. That’s what we’re really all about here. It’s about reducing emissions, it’s about helping some of those sectors that are more difficult to abate, and it’s also about making sure that we’ve got the biofuels and those supplies going into biofuels into the future. 

GILLON: More broadly, on the viability of the agriculture sector here in Australia, I’m keen for your reaction to that assessment we saw released on Monday, warning that some of the most productive agricultural regions in this country are set to suffer from decreased rainfall, increased heat stress, that cattle and sheep of course would be a real problem area there. Productivity sector head down along with animal welfare as a result of the changing climate. How would you characterise the future of the Ag sector with that lens on that report that we saw this week?  

COLLINS: Certainly, Ashleigh, our farmers already are adapting to climate change, and certainly we’re seeing that in terms of the amount of emissions that our farmers produce and how productive our farmers are. They’re some of the best in the world. What we want to do is work with them to continue to be able to do that. We’ve invested now over $300 million in Climate-Smart Ag with the sector and the industry. We’re investing through our regional development corporations. We’ve invested in terms of the Future Drought Fund and indeed, we’ve had discussions and seen parts of Australia in flood and parts of Australia in drought. We have been working across government to make sure that we adapt and we help farmers adapt in terms of their utilisation and the management of the land. There’s always more work to do and as part of the adaption we’ve been working with industry on an Ag and Land Sector Plan and I look forward to that plan being released in coming days and weeks. This is really about us working with industry and with the sector to make sure that we continue to have some of the world’s most productive and lowest emissions farmers.   

GILLON: So Minister, what do you say to farmers when you hear from them about how furious they are about wind farms, transmission lines, we’ve heard this a lot, no doubt, when you are travelling the country and meeting with farmers, they’re telling you the same thing.  What’s your answer to them?  

COLLINS: It’s obviously varied, and we’ve always had land use tensions across Australia. Renewable energy now, but of course, we’ve always had housing on prime agricultural land, we’ve always had mining and fracking on prime agricultural land. Land use tensions are not new in Australia. What we want to do, obviously, and what we need to do better is to communicate better with farmers about the use of the land. A lot of farmers are actually using it as an opportunity for them to actually diversify their income, and that’s certainly what we’re seeing across Australia. Some farmers are taking the opportunity, some farmers are quite rightly upset and concerned about the way some of them have been engaged, and so we need to get better engagement with our land managers, much better. Our farmers are obviously part of that, to make sure that they understand what the process is, and that they have options. If we give them all the information, they can make the best decisions about their land going forward.    

GILLON: Julie Collins, you’re a Tasmanian MP, are you comfortable with the $240 million or so in funding that the federal government is going to be putting towards the Macquarie Point Stadium when the state’s Planning Commission today says they’re knocking back the project? 

COLLINS: Obviously, we’ve also had our State Government and our Premier saying that they’re going to continue on with this project. What we’ve done as a federal government is we’ve got a $240 million capped contribution towards the Macquarie Point precinct. That precinct includes not just a stadium, but importantly, housing for key workers. It includes wharf upgrades, so it’s a bigger project. The Macquarie wharf area is a very significant area with a lot of opportunity, close to Hobart’s CBD, and indeed it’s been derelict now for about a decade. Last time we were in government, we put some money into it for it to progress, and nothing happened for a decade. Most Tasmanians want to see Macquarie Point developed in some form or another. But importantly, what we have done is we’ve put a capped contribution of $240 million towards the precinct. Also, the vast majority of Tasmanians, of course, do support an AFL team and want to see Tassie there on the ladder in the AFL, and Tasmanians have been pretty passionate about it for a long period of time, and it’s been very clear that we do need this to be able to get our team up.  

GILLON: Okay, so you are happy with the decision that the Liberal Premier is making there to push on with this, even though, of course, the cost more broadly for Tasmania blowing out to I think the latest was $1.13 billion? 

COLLINS: That will obviously be a decision for the Tasmanian Parliament to make, as I understand it, Ashleigh, and the Tasmanian Parliament will make that decision. What I would say as a federal Member, I’m comfortable that we are putting in a $240 million contribution to improve the Macquarie Point precinct, that we are working with the state government in terms of what is required on that precinct and that includes housing and wharf upgrades that are critical to Hobart and to Tasmania. We have been very clear about our contribution is capped. It is really up to the Tasmanian state government about making sure that it does what it needs to do in terms of the stadium.   

GILLON: Minister Julie Collins, really appreciate you making the time for us, thank you.  

COLLINS: Thanks very much, Ashleigh.