Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Respectfully—always respectful. I'm always respectful.

But the recent situation with fuel—and I appreciate that there's a component of this in this particular legislation—was a great worry. Not necessarily the fuel supply—I'll say that before I get any interjections. The government kept telling everyone—particularly those regional Australians who travel further, longer and more often than our city friends—that the supply was there. The supply, apparently, according to this government, was always there. But it was the distribution, it was the logistics, it was the supply, it was the affordability—and we saw communities such as Batlow, in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains in my electorate of Riverina, run out of fuel.

We saw farmers being held almost at ransom to be able to fill their trucks, fill their air seeders and fill their tractors with diesel at a busy time—it is sowing season. Unless the farmers take that window of opportunity after the rain comes to get their crops in, before the winter sets in and before the frosts start, they miss out. If our farmers in Australia—who we should thank three times a day, every day, when we tuck our knees under the table to eat; I think they often get forgotten—can't get their crops in for that winter season and then, obviously, harvest towards the end of the year, that becomes a food security issue. When you have a food security issue, that becomes a national security issue. Our farmers deserve every bit of praise and every bit of assistance, and they did not receive it when the war in Iran and over the Strait of Hormuz began, when the fuel crisis began and in those ensuing weeks.

What did the minister do? He appointed Anthea Harris as the fuel supply coordinator. Anthea Harris was already a very busy person doing the review of the Water Act—busy enough, I would suggest. We probably don't have to go too far into the Water Act and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the effects they've had on our farmers to know that Anthea Harris already has a very busy job. She shouldn't have been doing the job she was tasked with by the minister, requested by the government, and the Water Act review at the same time. She should not have been doing the minister's job, and she was. The minister should have been doing his own job, but the minister was too concerned with being the president of the COP, with being the president of fixing the world's climate—good luck with that, Minister—and our farmers were left, literally, high and dry without diesel.

For those who could get it, some of them had to pay cash and could only half fill their tanks. That's not good enough. When you're halfway through the circular rounds of your paddock and you run out of diesel, what do you do then? Your air seeder is full of seed, and you've only half finished the job. It's a little bit like Inland Rail, only half finished—Melbourne to Parkes, instead of Melbourne to Brisbane. It's a little bit like what most of this government does. It half finishes the job. Then they come into this place and, in the title of their legislation, use the word 'trusted'. 'Trust me,' they say; 'Trust us.'

Well, we know what happens when you trust Labor. Don't ever believe what Labor says it's going to do before an election; just look at what Labor does after an election. We remember well the 97 occasions, before the 2022 election, when Labor said it would reduce the power bills by $275. How did that work for you, Minister?

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