Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Just last weekend I'd run the tank dry. I went to my local servo in Gymea Bay and I filled up. I watched it go higher and higher and higher and, before I knew it, I was over 200 bucks. I made a video about it straight after that, just because I could not believe that, when filling up only a couple of weeks earlier, it was basically half the price.

Now, this isn't a luxury. This wasn't for a road trip. This wasn't for a getaway. This was to get the family around the town. This isn't a future problem; it's happening right now. And when fuel prices hit this level, everything changes. Families start doing maths about everyday life. They say: 'Do we drive to sport this weekend? Can we go away this Easter? Can we afford a holiday? Do we go away at all? Do we stay at home? Do we start cutting back on groceries? Can we afford next month's school fees?' That's the reality everyday families are living right across Australia.

Yes, the war on Iran may not have been foreseeable, but what is foreseeable is how quickly you react and how you get across your brief. And, unfortunately, all everyday Australians are having to adjust their way of life faster than this government has been able to adjust to a fuel crisis. You can't tell everyone that everything is fine on a Monday and then on Friday call it a national crisis. As soon as this started, what would happen was absolutely foreseeable. This government was caught flat footed, and they still are. While we welcome the doubling of ACCC penalties, there's more the government should have been looking at.

Earlier we heard from Scotty Buchholz in here—a man who has dedicated a huge proportion of his life to trucking, who owned 14 depots right across this country, who understands this industry. For him, this isn't policy. It's not a piece of legislation. It's not words on paper. He knows the people in this industry who are going to go bankrupt without adequate help. And, when they go bankrupt and stop delivering food to supermarket shelves and when crops stop getting sowed, it's everyday Australians that'll pay, and we risk stagflation. What he raised was: should we be looking at adjusting the fuel excise? Why is the government not having discussions on these topics—on road-user charging, on fuel excise—which would provide relief overnight to truck drivers right across the country?

Yes, we support doubling these penalties, but the ACCC takes time. They have to investigate cases. They have to create litigation. Australians need relief now. They need relief urgently. They are doing the maths right now on how they will get through Easter. I personally spoke to two trucking companies this week who are worried about going insolvent, and, when they go insolvent—they have customers who they deliver to. They go to Bunnings. They go to Woolies. They go to Coles. It's not just a bush issue. Right now, it may be. People in the cities might say, 'The worst thing that's happening to me is paying 200 bucks for a tank,' and that's pretty bad. But it could soon get much worse. When you start having road transport break down, you get shortages on supermarket shelves, you get unemployment spiking and you get inflation going through the roof.

The truth is that Australia was already experiencing the highest inflation of any advanced economy in the world. What should the federal government be doing? They should be protecting everyday Australians from international shocks. Instead, this government and Treasurer Chalmers had Australians flailing in the wind, with the highest inflation in the advanced world. So, when this international shock came through, it hit us like a freight train. Yes, you'd much rather be in the US. You'd much rather be in the UK or Japan. You would much rather be in any other advanced country in the world because they had lower inflation to begin with and lower interest rates, and, because they were not caught as flat footed as Australia was, petrol prices have gone up less in those countries than in Australia.

So, yes, the trigger for this event may not have been foreseeable, but how you react, how you prepare and how you get across your brief is. Unfortunately, disappointingly, Australians working across the suburbs of Gymea, Cronulla and Caringbah are paying the price for this. You're paying it at the bowser. You may soon be paying it at the supermarket. We will do what we can to work with this government to give you relief.

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