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

They live in a bubble. If you are coming to Canberra, I think you've got no idea of what is going on. There are service stations around Queensland where fuel has jumped by 40c to 60c a litre. Small trucking businesses that supply around the state and around the country, including those that move food back into the capital cities, are going broke. They can't pay these bills. We can't have a flood recovery effort without fuel. In fact, we can't have the repairs and maintenance done on roads in regional Australia without absorbing these massive increases in fuel costs. And guess who pays? Well, the taxpayer pays and the regional community gets nothing.

We know what's happening in the Middle East. This was not something that a reasonable person could not have foreseen. But to have the government continually gaslight Australians and say there's no problem is bizarre. What sort of representatives of people are you if you're not hearing their desperation? We know that this government has added a brave new tax, the safeguard mechanism, to our Australian refiners. We know that this government has added additional costs to those people who generate energy and fuel in this country. And who is going to pay for it? Well, it is Australians—everyday mums and dads who want to get to work or have a small business and who want to know that they can rely on the basics to get around and to run their business. Instead the government's telling them there's not a problem. Well, wake up and smell the roses, because there is a huge problem right across Australia. Australians are screaming for help. They're calling for their representatives to get up and listen to them.