Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to fuel security, as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in the name of Senator McKenzie, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to fuel security.

This morning, Canadian prime minister Carney said:

A country that can't feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options.

The war on Iran and restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz have already resulted in average petrol price increases of 10 per cent. Parts of the Northern Territory are already paying $4 a litre for fuel, and north Australian farmers and miners are having fuel orders rationed to them.

I've heard the scoffing from the government, from those opposite—a complete reluctance to address the reality that is facing people right across Australia, particularly northern Australia: people who are farming, who are mining, who are just trying to get their kids to school. It is not good enough. If Australians are telling you there is a problem, this idea of simply telling Australians there is nothing to worry about is not good enough, and Australians deserve better.

Australia is a global energy superpower, yet we can barely guarantee a month of fuel for our own people. We are currently importing up to 90 per cent of our petrol and diesel through some of the most volatile shipping checkpoints on Earth. Labor's response is to lecture Australians about buying more electric cars. Activist-driven ideology won't keep food on the shelves. It won't keep planes in the air. You cannot run a wheat harvester, a muster, a road train or a regional hospital on batteries, and we certainly can't run them with fuel being rationed into these regions already.

Labor needs to stop its virtue signalling, it needs to stop telling Australians that there's no problem and it needs to start protecting Australians' interests, as a matter of urgency. All we heard today was the government patting Australians on the head, disregarding their queuing for fuel. You cannot buy a jerry can in Townsville. They're calling farmers and graziers 'hysterical'. Really? Is that the response? What a failure of the government—telling Australians there is nothing to worry about, when their lived experience is happening right now. Fuel is being rationed to people who grow food, who mine minerals, and families are queueing.

We know what the impact of this will be at fuel bowsers and at supermarket checkouts. But what will be the result of Brent crude already surging to around $80 a barrel? Barclay's is suggesting that a prolonged conflict or a continued blockade in the Strait of Hormuz will push prices towards $100 to $120 a barrel. And we know that every US$1 increase in the price per barrel will translate to approximately 1c at Australian fuel pumps and around a 0.1 percent to 0.2 per cent increase in headline inflation. This is already a home-grown problem in Australia. Inflation in Australia is already higher than in the rest of the developed world. We have higher costs of living, thanks to government inaction and outrageous spending. Now we're seeing a lack of action on the most important thing that affects all Australians: the availability and affordability of fuel absolutely must be addressed by the government.

Today I have sought to suspend standing orders to debate the urgency of a strategy and a plan for fuel security in this country—right now—and the government has denied me that opportunity. This flies in the face of what every Australian grazier has just been told—to wait for fuel—and the fact that miners now have to plan how they're going to manage their transport requirements. And it will affect the cost of food on supermarket shelves. This is shocking. Where is the government on this? Patting Australians on the head and telling them there is not a problem is not good government. (Time expired)