Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. On fuel, first the Prime Minister said there was no problem. Just days later, there was a crisis. Last week, the Prime Minister refused to cut the fuel excise in response to our call to slash the tax. Then, just one hour ago, the Prime Minister finally announced a fuel excise cut. Why is the Prime Minister always the last to lead in a national crisis?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the latest leader of the opposition for his question. The question began by saying that somehow the government, and I as Prime Minister, didn't say there was an issue with fuel, like we didn't know that there was a war that had impacted the entire global fuel supply network. It's just beyond comprehension. The same group that came in here and actually asked the question one day, 'When will the war end?' which they thought through in tactics, now pretends that somehow we on this side didn't acknowledge that there was a war and that it would have an impact, which it is having right around the world.

Leadership is about responding in a coherent, strategic, orderly way, and that is precisely what we have done. We are working with industry and with state and territory governments, working through all of the issues, concentrating on the first issue, which is supply, and making sure that we work with our international partners in the region. There was the announcement that we made on Sunday about shoring up supply. We are changing the standards of both petrol and diesel so there is increased supply there as well. We are releasing, in a coherent, orderly way, 20 per cent of the reserves, making sure that it gets to where it is needed. We are also working through on price. It's not an ill-thought-out proposal that says, 'We're going to actually increase electricity prices by somehow doing something on fuel,' but we're working it through so that, as well as the Commonwealth taking action, state and territory governments are taking action. We are making sure that we deal with the issue of the road user charge, reducing that to zero in recognition that particularly heavy vehicles are under enormous pressure. That is what good government looks like: orderly, coherent and making sure we look after our national interests. That's precisely what we will continue to do.