David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Three weeks ago, the Albanese government told us there was no fuel crisis, there was no problem, we were all going to be able to get on our way, and we didn't need to panic buy. It was all good. Even yesterday the Minister for Climate Change and Energy tells us that the supply is there and we've got it. Well, the good people of Maranoa would tell you different. If you want to know the lived experience of people in Maranoa, go to the town of Texas. Eight-hundred people live in Texas, and they have a fuel station that has no fuel. Their closest fuel station is 80 kilometres away. Go to Wallangarra on the border of New South Wales. Again, 70 people live there, but it's on the New England highway. There's no fuel. You want to go to Leyburn, just down the road from where I live? There's no fuel. You want to go to Allora where Bartranz, a locally owned company that supplies fuel to many of the primary producers there, who are trying to harvest sorghum at the moment. There's no fuel, not only for the service station but for the farmers.

This is a disconnect between this government and the real world. They've worked in the superficial rather than in the reality of the lived experience or by understanding our supply chains, how our economy works or how regional Australia works. Let me tell you: if we don't have the fuel, you don't have the food. If we don't have the fuel, we don't have those iron ore and coal exports going to a port to pay the bills for you to sit here. This is the stark reality of a government that has been asleep at the wheel, that has no understanding of our supply chains and our economy, because they don't care and they don't understand. Let me tell you: there are people in regional Australia today that are frightened and frustrated because we have a government and a minister that is living in ideology rather than practical reality.

This is about making sure they use the levers they've got. The minister knows to the litre where every litre of fuel is at the moment, and yet he is not using his powers to direct it to where it's needed, and that is regional Australia. Let me tell you: not only are farmers and miners going to hurt, but we in western Queensland are about to go into our peak tourist season. We have the Stockman's Hall of Fame, the Qantas Founders Museum and the dinosaur museum up in Winton. Normally, 60,000 people visit that between Easter and October. Well, let me give you six to four on this, Minister. There will be no-one going out there. There will be no money spent in western Queensland, because they can't afford it, let alone get the supply to get to the next town.

This is where you have a minister that is out of his depth, that has no understanding of what his role is and the powers that he has at his disposal. He has failed to use them. And we have a prime minister that is complicit in the inability to step up and lead our nation. This is a moment for this Prime Minister. He missed it with Bondi and now he's missing it with fuel. He's gone missing in action, this government has gone missing in action and regional Australia is paying the price of an inept government and an inept minister that should be held to account. If he can't, he should be sacked today. If the Prime Minister's got any guts, he'll do it today.

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