Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the House. As you know, I'm always happy and have a wonderful demeanour—except when it comes to the government making a complete hash, a complete mess, of this national fuel crisis. Here we are again having to rush through legislation because the government has been completely and utterly asleep at the wheel. We are going to support this suspension motion, but we say again to the government: please try and get ahead of the game and don't be playing catch-up all the time. People are hurting out there in the community. They're hurting for two reasons: there is no supply of fuel and prices have gone through the roof.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister would not tell the Australian people how many fuel stations are out of fuel and how many service stations do not have either diesel or unleaded petrol. You talk about being responsible. In question time, when you're asked the question, front up and give Australians the facts. Why is the Prime Minister hiding the number of service stations that have no fuel? If there's no issue, then be upfront with the Australian people.

I'm here every single day, and we asked him twice yesterday. Returning to the suspension motion, it's incredibly important that we do suspend because we need this fuel excise bill brought on. Once again, we're seeing the government following the opposition's lead. We've led on this, and, once again, you very reluctantly have come along, so you're bringing this bill before the House. That's why we need to suspend. I'll give you a couple of quotes which show the reluctance, on the government's side, on this issue:

Now, when it comes to the fuel excise, that's not something that we've been considering.

Who said that? The Treasurer, on 4 March. Then he said:

The point that we've made about that, Andrew, is that it's not something that we've been considering.

That's the Treasurer, on 15 March. Then there's this:

We haven't taken a decision on the fuel excise, we've got a whole bunch of other ways that we're helping, because the emphasis here is on supply—

he won't even give us the figures on that—

the emphasis here is on working with the states and territories.

That was on 30 March. Then there was this from the Assistant Treasurer:

Now, it's interesting last week when this issue was front and centre just about every day, the Opposition didn't raise this issue of the fuel excise once for discussion or debate, and it just seems like today it's been raised as a bit of a thought bubble.

So the Assistant Treasurer was calling this legislation a thought bubble on Friday, yet here we are! The government is bringing this bill on. That's why we're supporting this suspension of standing orders. It's critically important.

As I said at the start, Australians are hurting. There are supply issues which are being hidden now by the government. They won't be transparent and upfront about them. I say to the Treasurer, when he finally gets to introduce the bill, that he should start by being upfront. Tell us what the situation is at the moment in this country in terms of service stations either with or without fuel. People are about to go on their Easter break, their Easter holidays, and they should know what the current situation is.

The second thing the Treasurer should detail for us is what the offsets are. We responsibly listed the offsets so that we wouldn't get inflation from a measure like this. We need to hear from the Treasurer, right here and now, what the offsets are. I can see him smiling, because he doesn't have them, and that's why we should—

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