David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon we've seen the self-congratulation of the Albanese government for taking up the coalition's idea of cutting excise and helping our heavy transport industry by removing the road-user charge.

They've been asleep at the wheel. For the last three weeks, they've done three-fifths of bugger all to help this fuel crisis. There was no crisis three weeks ago, and, all of a sudden, they've found one. They've found one because ultimately people have seen their service stations run out of fuel not just in regional areas but also in capital cities. We are living in third-world circumstances. This is a government that has had all the tools at their disposal. The minister himself has had, since day one, the ability to know where every litre of fuel is in this country, and yet, despite the fact that he knew that there were gaps in the supply chain around this country, he did nothing about it. He did zero. He didn't care. He worked in the superficial of making sure a few servos in the cities kept their fuel, but those in regional Australia got nothing. His big plan, with Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, is to also increase penalties from the ACCC. If these merchants were doing the wrong thing, why hasn't the ACCC already started an investigation, despite the size of the penalty, and done something about it? The ACCC is about as useful as the Bureau of Meteorology. Australians have lost faith in their institutions. They have lost faith in this government, who have let a crisis take hold, destroyed regional Australia and destroyed our supply chains and are destroying our economy.