Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I say at the outset: Australians are hurting. And, after four years of this Albanese government, Australians are worse off, and they know our country is heading in the wrong direction.

The Iran war may have started four weeks ago, but Labor's war on fossil fuels started four years ago. What we have seen in this crisis is a government which has been slow to act. Just three weeks ago, we had the Minister for Climate Change and Energy standing opposite us here and telling Australians, and telling the opposition, that we, the opposition, were scaremongering when we were raising concerns about the lack of fuel supply to key industries around the nation. The shadow energy minister and I and my colleagues stood to ask questions about Australians who were experiencing a lack of fuel supply in their communities which was impacting their families, impacting their jobs, impacting their small businesses and impacting their farms, and the minister said that we were scaremongering. These were legitimate supply-chain issues being raised by members on this side of the chamber. Australians were feeling insecure—and they are still feeling insecure, because they don't believe this energy minister is doing his day job. Then, after accusing the coalition of scaremongering, the minister came into the parliament, just two days later, and announced a national fuel crisis. So on the Tuesday we were scaremongering, but by Thursday there was a national fuel crisis!

From where I sit on the front bench here, I get a very good view of the government backbench. What I've noticed in the last couple of weeks is, every time the energy minister gets to his feet, out come the phones. They look very closely at their phones—look at my Facebook; look at my Instagram. Whatever you do, don't engage with the energy minister because he is making a fool of you. He is making a fool of you because he can't do his day job.

The national fuel crisis, which the minister denied existed, is now very apparent.

If the aged-care minister wants to start having a chat, he can have a chat straight after me and he can explain to me—

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