Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

What we just heard in that diatribe is so far from the convention of this place. It is disgraceful that members of the government come in here to give speeches to say: 'Why won't you vote on a bill that we haven't given to you? Why won't we vote on a bill that we haven't shown the Australian people and we haven't been honest with this parliament about? Why won't you do that?' Because it's bad, bad governance—it is ridiculous to have government ministers who want to be all tricky and go, 'Oh, well, we'll just add this in at the last minute.' We haven't been able to go through the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill. It was introduced this morning, and now you want to somehow try and ram it through and say: 'Trust us. We're the Labor government.' I don't and neither do the majority of the Australian people, because as we've seen continually under this government—we have seen them hoodwink them. We've seen things hidden in bills. That's what's about to happen or is trying to happen under this government.

The coalition support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026. We got it yesterday. We spent last night going through it. We looked for where all the sneaky by-lines normally are. We support it. We came in today and we offered the government an olive branch and said, 'We want to bring it on quickly—earlier—for debate so we can get it passed through here. Then it can go to the Senate and also go out into the community to make sure that big business and those fuel companies aren't ripping off the consumer.' That's what we did.

As the Manager of Opposition Business was doing that, the Leader of the House saw an opportunity to play politics with a national crisis. He added a little part, an amendment, that said he wanted to ram through the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026, which was introduced this morning and which we haven't had the ability to go through—and which the Australian public hasn't been able to look at, scrutinise and then give their feedback on. So we are reserving our right, as the shadow ministers right now are rushing through this bill as quickly as they can. But it's just politics after politics with this government.

The real concern isn't about what happens in the bubble; it's what's happening around the country. People can't afford to put fuel in their cars. We heard from the minister. He stood in here—I think it was yesterday—and he said, 'We have the same amount of fuel as we did before the war in the Middle East.' If that is the case, why are petrol stations and fuel supplies running low? Why have fuel and petrol stations closed down? Why are people drilling into farmers' fuel tanks and draining their fuel? It is because what he said is not true.

We've heard the Prime Minister previously say, 'The Australian people should only take what they need.' If you couldn't afford it a week ago, you're not going to be able to afford it in two weeks, when it goes from $3 up to $4 in Townsville. People are trying to live their lives, and now they can't afford fuel, and these petrol stations that are jacking up prices need to be held accountable. I absolutely agree with that. I absolutely agree that that has to happen, and right now this parliament should be working together.

Right now elected members should be putting together the plan to make sure that people can afford fuel at the bowser so that it isn't an extra cost on them and it doesn't impact the cost-of-living crisis that they're already facing. Around the country, the real discussion is going to happen when parents wake up on Easter Day and say, 'The Easter bunny won't be coming today,' because they can't afford to buy that little bit extra that they're used to. They can't afford to drive to the shops to get it or to buy the groceries because everything has gone up.

If you were to listen to the member for Wright, Scotty Buchholz, you would know that he's in the transport industry. He's the only truckie in this parliament, but no-one's reached out and said, 'What do you think we should do? How can we make this better?' All we're seeing is politics from this Labor government instead of action, and that's a shame.

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