LEON BYNER:  This has got to be some good news because the Energy Minister - whom we'll meet again in a moment - wants this country to capitalise on depressed global oil and gas markets to deliver cheap energy for industry and boost our strategic oil reserve. Now, I would say to that, hallelujah. Angus Taylor, good morning.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Thanks for having me, Leon.

LEON BYNER: My pleasure. So, given the cost of buying stocks is barely a fraction of what it might have cost in normal times, that if it will exist again - there is a bargain to be had! Are we going to put our hands in our pockets and grab a lot of this cheap fuel?

ANGUS TAYLOR: The short answer is, yes. We will take advantage of these low oil prices to enhance fuel security. I mean, it's an extraordinary situation. As I think I've said on your show before, I was over in the US only a few weeks ago talking to them about accessing their storages - not because we don't want to store more of this locally, we do, but in the short term we just don't have enough storage here in Australia. So, there's a great opportunity through our relationship with the US to start building a strategic reserve and then progressively making sure it's where we want it to be, and of course some or much of that will need to be in Australia. But the short term buying opportunity is an extraordinary one, we've been working on it for some time, and of course now it's all coming to fruition. We signed a Heads of Agreement a number of weeks back with the United States and we're finalising the final clauses on that right now.

LEON BYNER: It'll be a better price. I bet it'll be a better price.

ANGUS TAYLOR: It sure will.

LEON BYNER: Than what it would have been when you first mooted this.

ANGUS TAYLOR: It sure will. It was, as you know, it went negative yesterday which is an extraordinary situation, first time in history - it's back above zero, there was a strange quirk in the way the market works that took it negative. But the short answer to why it's gone so low is because there's just no, almost no storage left in the world. So, we are in this unique position in our relationship with the United States to start using the work we've been doing and get stuck into the market.

LEON BYNER: I want to ask about gas. Now, where do we stand with gas? Because from all of the information I've been reading and, indeed, a lot of our energy experts have made the point that the price of gas is going to come down quite substantially. Do you say that's the case?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Yes, it already has. In wholesale terms, of course, wholesale leads retail prices so you won't see it yet in your bills but you will see it over time - so, it's down a long way. To put it in perspective, not so long ago we were seeing gas prices up above $10 a gigajoule - it's now below $5. And, indeed, before COVID-19 came along, it was down closer to $6 or $7, so it had already come down a long way. This is a fantastic opportunity for Australian manufacturing. We really can now start to make use of these lower gas prices, lower oil prices to start to build some of our manufacturing, energy intensive manufacturing strength again. This won't be a one-off. I mean, it's clear that there's structural changes in these markets that have happened, particularly the gas market locally which is providing great opportunities. We're determined to look to a gas-fired recovery on the way out of COVID-19, but this is a great opportunity for manufacturing.

LEON BYNER: Now, we in SA, of course, we have a reliance on gas that has a direct feed-in to power prices.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Sure.

LEON BYNER: So, we might reasonably expect that as a result of $5 a gigajoule rather than double, that that's going to make some impact on our power bills?

ANGUS TAYLOR: It already is in the wholesale market. So we've seen the wholesale market basically halve across the eastern states in the last few months

LEON BYNER: Will they pass that on?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we've put legislation through the Parliament - and again, I've spoken on your show about this - not so long ago.

LEON BYNER: Yes.

ANGUS TAYLOR: The Big Stick legislation, which requires substantial and sustained reductions in wholesale prices to be passed onto consumers. So, it's very clear, it's now legislated. We have the powers around this we need or the ACCC does, and so it is crucial that this gets passed on. They're very significant reductions we've seen and importantly they were happening before COVID-19 came along, we were seeing these reductions. The new gas generator that I opened along with the State Minister back not so long going in South Australia, has been helping the extra supply to get these prices down. So, the combination of lower gas prices, lower electricity prices, and of course the low oil prices which we were talking about a moment ago are a great opportunity. We want to see it passed on. We want to make sure manufacturing has a great future in this country, and of course we want customers of the retail offers which is households and small businesses to get the benefit of it as well.

LEON BYNER: Angus Taylor, thank you for coming on today. That's the Federal Energy Minister with what is good news. I mean, to have a 50 per cent drop in the wholesale price - well yes, we pay retail, I hear you - but you would expect that all of the operators concerned in the chain of supply would be passing that on.

ENDS