Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How do you create a fuel crisis in a country that exports energy? How do you take one of the most resource-rich nations and push it to the point where everyday Australians are wondering if they can get to work today, tomorrow and the next day? Well, the Albanese Labor government's managed to do that. They've managed to achieve what no Australian wants. As of yesterday, more than 500 petrol stations were dry, and I think there are more because I'm hearing multiple reports in my community alone of petrol stations have run out of fuel. They're not low. They're not limited. They're completely empty.

Along Mulgoa Road, one of the busiest corridors in my electorate of Lindsay, nearly every single petrol station was either out of diesel or out of fuel altogether last night. What are they paying? E10 is averaging $2.47, 98 unleaded is higher, getting towards $3, and diesel is up over $3 a litre. These prices aren't stabilising; they are skyrocketing, rising by around 10c per litre every single day.

This is not normal. This is not a cycle. This is an absolute crisis. It took the minister for energy kicking and screaming to declare this, to actually notice this. Last week, he was saying there was nothing to see here. While Australians are queuing for fuel, what is the government saying? Minister Catherine King says, 'We've got plenty of fuel in this country.' Minister Claire O'Neil insists we have the fuel circulating in the economy that we need. The energy minister, Chris Bowen, declared that a national fuel emergency is not really on the agenda. Not on the agenda? So what do they call this? What do they call empty bowsers, soaring prices and Australians lining up just to get to work? Out in the real world, it looks very much like an emergency.

Carol, who owns the historic Nepean Belle, told me her suppliers are now adding extra charges just to cover their fuel costs, while at the same time her own diesel bill has doubled. She's been hit twice—a double whammy, as she calls it. Shane, a hardworking local, told me he paid $150 just to fill up his car. Now he's questioning whether he can even get to work. Ricky, a truck driver, put it plainly: 'Diesel is over 319c per litre. If trucks stop then so will our nation.' Sam has been tracking prices day by day, watching them climb not weekly but daily, locking in one price only to see it jump dramatically within 24 hours and then again the next day. Australians are asking, 'Where is the government?' From where they're standing, it feels like no-one is in charge.

This isn't just a fuel issue; it is a cost-of-living crisis and it is supercharged. The country is running on empty, literally. Labor's response, instead of fixing the problem, is to have a tsar, because apparently when the energy minister fails you don't solve the crisis; you rename it and move it on to someone else. You rebrand it and you outsource it. The appointment of this tsar is a glowing, flashing neon sign that says, 'The energy minister is not doing his job.' We have a government scrambling.