Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

He's part time. You are absolutely right, Member for Grey. This is what happens when you are a part-time minister and your focus is on the United Nations and on being part-time 'el presidente'—remember he has to share it; remember he had to compete to share it. This is the problem. While Australians suffer with higher fuel prices and not being able to get fuel, his mind is elsewhere. If you want to get a sense of why this minister has his mind elsewhere—we saw it today. I wish I hadn't taken a point of order on this, but I had to on behalf of the constituent who'd raised the question. We had the minister quoting the minister on the minister. Doesn't that say it all? No wonder he wants to be over at COP being 'el presidente'. That's where his ego wants to take him. What we're saying to the minister is it's time to put all that aside. Forget about quoting yourself on yourself and start getting back to the Australian people.

The Australian people are doing it tough at the moment. In some instances they've seen a 40 per cent increase in the price at the bowser. Can you imagine? You're struggling with the cost of living, and you turn up to the bowser and there's a 40 per cent increase in fuel. You have to start thinking, when you're driving the kids home from school, 'Does that mean I don't stop at the shop for a snack?' Does that mean, when your son or daughter comes and says, 'I wouldn't mind a new pair of soccer boots, because I put a hole in them,' you think to yourself, 'Sadly, that money's now going into my fuel tank rather than providing my kids with that new pair of soccer boots'? Does that mean that those who are struggling to pay the bills to feed their families now have more costs and have to start rationing their food even further or they have to start thinking about rationing their fuel? This should not be the case in this country at the moment. We have a distribution issue. The minister is not delivering the fuel where it needs to go, and we've pointed out to him how he could do this: be on top of your game, don't be a part-time minister, call the independent distributors in, call the fuel companies in and use the information that you have available from the mechanisms that we put in place to deliver that fuel where it needs to go.

It does seem like the minister today, following the absolute towelling he got in question time yesterday, has decided to act and it sounds like he's starting to make some decisions which might see some of the shortages ameliorate. But the problem is that—and we saw it on the front page of the Fin Review today—in some instances it's too late. With regard to the example on the front page of the AFR today, that farmer who is wanting to put a crop in cannot get the fuel to put his crop in. The more farmers that happens to, the less food security this nation has. What will that ultimately lead to? It will lead to supermarket price rises. This is the incompetence of the minister for energy. Not only are people paying more at the bowser but they're going to be paying more at the supermarket. Put that on top of what is happening with inflation in this nation, and this is a serious cause for concern.

We had the NAB out today saying it's highly likely we'll get an interest rate rise next week. And guess how much the average Australian is paying on their mortgage? An additional $23,000, as a result of the economic mismanagement of the Labor government—$23,000. I look forward to hearing what the assistant minister has to say about this when he gets up to speak, because not only are we paying more at the petrol pump, not only are we paying more at the supermarket, but, since you've come to office, those people with a mortgage are paying $23,000 more on their mortgage repayments. So we have a serious cost-of-living crisis in this country.

Our standard of living is declining daily. And yet that hapless lot over there can do nothing to turn around this standard-of-living decline. As a matter of fact, what we've seen this week is that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy is making it worse.

So I say this to the Prime Minister. He concluded today—when Australians are doing it tough, when Australians are doing it hard—by turning his attention to us. Yet you know what the Prime Minister said, when he was in opposition? He complained, every single time we turned attention onto them. So I'd say to the Prime Minister: Stop being a hypocrite, and focus on the Australian people. Focus on getting your ministers to do their job. Get your minister for energy to do his job. Get your Treasurer to do his job. Make sure that you help and assist Australians with this standard-of-living crisis, because everything your government is doing is making it worse.

I'll finish on this note. I'll say this to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy: Your track record as a minister means you should not be sitting in that seat. And what you are doing to the Australian people, through your incompetence on fuel price rises and fuel shortages, should absolutely be damned.

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