Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Reid did just go there! Although I would remind her that two of those refineries were announced as closures under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, so those opposite should be very careful about criticising. The member for Reid talked about commentary in crises, and I was prepared because I thought this might come up today. I'm going to read out a few quotes from someone that gave commentary during a crisis—COVID, when we all needed to band together.

We've heard from those opposite that you shouldn't be criticising leaders during COVID—that it's a failure of leadership if you criticised during COVID. Let's play bingo. Who said this? 'At this moment of crisis, the Prime Minister has failed to lead.' That was the then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, during COVID. That's one. 'The Prime Minister has no plan, just more confusion and blame shifting.' That's two. It was opposition leader at the time, Anthony Albanese. Let's go with three. 'This government will blame any weakness on crisis, but that is disingenuous at best.' Who was that? Opposition leader Anthony Albanese. I've got a whole page. I'm not going to read them. I hope the member for Reid takes these to the Prime Minister and holds him to account for his commentary during COVID, because, let's be honest, we are sick of the sanctimony from this prime minister. His own words show the hypocrisy of this prime minister and show a complete failure in leadership.

Let's talk about this failure in leadership. This prime minister is not a leader. At best, he's a manager. At best, he looks to manage the situation and spin it to his own advantage, and we've seen that this week. They do say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Well, the Prime Minister paid the coalition a great form of flattery—working proactively, offering policies to solve the challenges that we face—by imitating and copying our policy on Monday to cut the fuel excise and reduce the road user charge to take pressure off the Australian people. It was announced on Friday by the coalition. The opposition leader wrote to the Prime Minister. Three days later, on Monday, it became government policy. That is about leadership by the opposition leader—working constructively, bringing forward a policy that will take pressure off the Australian people. It was such a good idea that the Prime Minister took it, so well done, Prime Minister.

But, surprisingly, Member for Riverina, there have been some members in this House that have criticised that policy. Surely not, in a crisis where fuel prices are above $2.50 and diesel is above $3.

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