Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

But, unfortunately, as we can hear now with the interjections, they can't even bring themselves to conduct that kind of responsible statement on behalf of their constituents. That's not what we're doing. As a government, we are taking that very seriously and making sure that we get the right messages across to people about buying the fuel they need.

More than that, as a government, we are also very responsibly making sure that we increase supply to meet that increase in demand and that there is no profiteering during this period. We've boosted the fuel supply by releasing up to 20 per cent of the baseline minimum stockholding obligation for petrol and diesel. In addition to that, we've had two more agreements that have been struck, with 757 million litres now flowing—released—to regional Australia. We've appointed Anthea Harris as the Fuel Supply Taskforce Coordinator to support coordination across governments and sectors across the country. Ms Harris will lead a new fuel supply taskforce that will be established by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

We've also convened roundtables with the fuel industry, the transport industry and the agricultural sector, doing substantive work to coordinate our efforts during this period. We're not making pot shots, not doing personal pot shots like the previous member was, not making interjections and not carrying on, but we are doing the responsible work that the government needs. We've convened the National Oil Supplies Emergency Committee. We've held six meetings since 1 March, and we've activated the National Coordination Mechanism, which has now met twice.

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