Ash Ambihaipahar (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

They want to talk about leadership. It's leadership time! This Labor government is a team—the Prime Minister, our ministers, we backbenchers. We work together as one because we know unity delivers the best outcomes for our electorates and our country. My role in the team is to be on the ground. I doorknock, I phonebank and I meet with local constituents. I make myself quite available, and I can say the same for all of us on this side of the chamber. Because of this, we know about the pressure on families right now, and the pressure is real. Families are stretched. Costs are up. People are worried, and they expect us to act quickly and together. We recognise that and we take it very seriously.

I welcome the coalition's words earlier today about working together. But do they actually mean it? Because when it came to dealing with those measures, they did not want to engage with the Fair Work amendments. These are practical changes that would support our trucking industries right now. Instead, we saw the member for Goldstein turn to another story about the union conspiracies. Now, that does not help a single family fill up their car, it does not help a single truckie keep their business going and it does not bring prices down. If the coalition is serious about helping Australians, then this is the work in front of us.

On the very day of this conflict, when it began, fuel retailers put their prices up. They saw the news cycle. They saw the fear building. They knew Australians would be worried and they took advantage of it. This is predatory. It is companies exploiting anxiety to boost their profits with no thought to how it will make this crisis worse for families getting ready for Easter. But we also have to be honest about what we are seeing in the community. We've not learnt from the 'toilet paper gate' during the pandemic. People are filling up when they don't need to, bringing jerry cans and buying more than what they need, not thinking about the person next to them. That behaviour drives demand higher and pushes prices up even further. At moments like this, we have a choice in how we behave. We can panic, we can treat it like it's every other person for themselves or we can choose something better. The kindest thing you can do right now is to look out for your neighbour. Make sure there is enough for everyone. Act with care, act with restraint—because we are a kind and united country at its core. That is who we are, and we can choose to act that way when it matters most. This whole parliament should be demonstrating that kind of behaviour.

That is leadership, and this government has done that consistently through the cost-of-living relief—$25 medicines on the PBS; paid parental leave expanded to 24 weeks; another pay rise for 2.7 million Aussie workers backed in today; paid pracs for nursing, teaching, social work and midwifery students; 30 per cent off home batteries to permanently cut down power bills; expanded bulk-billing; and another pay rise to aged-care nurses following the first instalment in March. One million households are benefiting from back-to-back increases to rent assistance, 1.1 million Australians are benefiting from higher social security payments, and we're delivering tax relief to every single taxpayer, with round 2 coming this year and round 3 coming the year after.

They want to talk about leadership? The Liberal Party's on its second leader this term, has had mass resignations, is yet to produce actual clear policy positions and actually stick to them, and is being dragged around by another party whose only ideas are to divide the people of this country based on where they come from or ban Australians who happen to have my colour of skin. All constituents expect better.

Instead of calming the situation, those opposite have made it worse by claiming there is a supply shortage. There is not. Not a single shipment of fuel has been delayed. In fact, we have acted. We've released 20 per cent of our minimum fuel reserves; we've amended fuel standards to increase supply; we've empowered the ACCC to improve distribution, especially into the regional areas; and we're working with international partners to maintain supply. We are using every lever available to keep fuel flowing and ease pressure on prices, and we introduced our Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026 to back in our truckies and crack down on price gouging. That's what leadership looks like.

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