Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Well, from panic buying to, apparently, tonight at 7 pm, a panic address by a prime minister who is really struggling to pull the narrative back to 'he's in control'. This MPI is about leadership and the PM's failure to lead. I do have a few pages here that might address that issue, but I really want to look at one.

I asked the Prime Minister today in question time about the National Fuel Security Plan and whether he could tell us who will be classified as critical users. Well, he couldn't. He wasn't happy about the question and sat down. We asked it again, and we finally found out that it is emergency workers, as you would expect—the police, the SES, the ambulance and the firies. And we understand all of that.

What fills me with dismay is that this Prime Minister and his cabinet do not understand that farmers and the trucking industry ought also to be in that critical user list. That's because, if our trucks stop, Australia stops. If farmers can't get their seed into the ground then it doesn't grow. And guess what? It doesn't make food, and they can't harvest it. Fuel is essential for our farmers. On top of that, urea is essential for our farmers. What is this government doing about it? Well, a little too little, too late, frankly.

I would say that, right from the get-go, this prime minister has failed the leadership test, from the fact that he turns to us in the coalition, time after time, and says, 'Well, what's your solution? Come to me with your answers.' No. You are the Prime Minister and you have a cabinet who should be working with everyone to sort out these issues. These are complex issues. Nobody is denying that. But there are people who are being left behind, and they are people in regional Australia. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said he will leave no-one behind, but I would argue that he is absolutely leaving regional Australians behind.

Of course. we called for the halving of the fuel excise on Friday. We also called for the road user charge to be dropped. By Monday, finally, the Prime Minister came forward and said: 'Oh, guess what we're going to do. We're going to halve the excise, and, in agreement with the states, we're going to drop the road user charge.' And tonight I dare say we will hear from the Prime Minister about his next steps. It is a government that is acting to preserve its status rather than acting in the interests of all Australians. That is my deep concern.

We belled the cat yesterday on a crazy plan to expand the number of MPs in parliament. My goodness me, that was tone deaf, absolutely tone deaf. There is no way that the Labor Party can walk away from this. The negotiations were happening. We know they were happening. Don Farrell, the Special Minister of State, made the statements last week, so we know that it was on the table. The Prime Minister then said, 'No, no, no.'

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