Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by opposition senators today.

Today, we heard so many things about what's going on with fuel in Australia. What started out as a right-wing conspiracy is now a full-blown national crisis, according to the government. What we're seeing is the evolution of denial—it's almost the stages of grief, isn't it, that you go through as a government? You go through denial. You go through negotiation. We're almost getting to acceptance now, where we accept it's a national crisis. That's where we're almost at. We've heard so many things today. There's acceptance that our farmers aren't out there getting the diesel they need to crop and to look after their animals.

When I was taking note in the last sitting week, I raised the plight of a feedlot supplier that was not able to get food for his animals and was contemplating having to put them down rather than fall foul of animal cruelty laws, except he was finally able to get some via a much more expensive contract. But we still don't see the understanding here. We don't see the understanding of what really makes regional areas tick. We've seen a water tsar put in charge of the fuel crisis, and we all know that fuel and water do not mix. You can't have a climate scientist fixing the fuel supplies of the country, because you need a logistics person. You need to get it from the tanks to the people. That's the important bit.

When we talk about the Iran war or the Ukraine gas stuff—we don't have Putin's people, or we don't have Iranians, on the Hume Highway stopping the fuel getting from the tanks to the farmers. It is about logistical supply, and this government is not understanding what's going wrong. They don't even understand the lengths of it. We heard there's great supply and that we have a hundred million litres per month of high-sulphur fuel that can go out there. It was petrol, not diesel, and apart from one very bad mistake I made in my Ford Everest that cost me $1,200 I know the difference between fuel and petrol.