Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In a time of crisis when there's an emergency with things going on, either you see real leadership or you don't, and what my community feel right now is that we are not seeing real leadership in this country in what are very extenuating circumstances. I acknowledge that obviously these circumstances aren't the doing of the Australian government or people in Australia, but they have ramifications, obviously, all around the world and very severe ramifications in our economy.

Within four to five days of the conflict in Iran starting, I was getting calls from major agricultural players, processors and the like who already were being told that fuel supplies were going to be cancelled or that they weren't going to get them when they normally would, which was causing immediate problems. In the parliament the next week, we were all down here asking questions of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. We were highlighting supply issues that we saw. That whole first week, we heard, 'Nothing to see here,' from him. There were no issues; everything was under control. Then suddenly, a week later, we heard, 'Well, yes, we don't have a fuel reserve issue, but, yes, there are 500 petrol stations across the country who don't have enough fuel.' Again, we came up with the solution. The price issue was causing, and will still cause, massive inflationary impacts across this economy. We were saying, 'You need to do something about it.' Finally, they followed our commitment to halve the fuel excise. They need to lead on this.