Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to step everybody back through what's happened over the past week, because I was a bit flabbergasted to hear Senator Ayres before mention what they were doing to deal with the undersupply issues, when all we've heard from him from the past week has been: 'This is a demand issue. It's Australians out there filling up their jerry cans that's causing the petrol bowser and the diesel bowser to run out.' I don't know about you, but I think it would take an awful lot of jerry cans to make over 100 diesel bowsers across New South Wales run out.

We heard last Wednesday that there was no problem—nothing to see here! Then, on Thursday, this was a crisis, but it was demand driven. The blame was put on Australians. There was no supply crisis. He said it was 'far-right extremist scaremongering' to suggest that there was a fuel crisis in Australia, that there was no need for Australians to be concerned and that it was not a supply problem, just unusual demand behaviour. He said that we were hyperventilating and that it was hyperpartisan commentary.

For some reason, we are not allowed to hold this government to account for their failure to keep Australia secure in terms of its fuel and for their failure to make sure that the fuel gets to where it's needed to so that our farmers continue going out and feeding this nation. 'Hyperventilating', they called that. We saw smirking today from the minister responsible for answering questions about what they are going to do about this fuel crisis. It's contempt; it's not an apology and it's not an explanation.

I'll tell you how real it is for people in my home state of New South Wales. We are seeing a fertiliser shortage. We're seeing farmers sleeping beside their machinery to protect their fuel. Farmers should be feeding the nation. They shouldn't be standing on a picket to protect their own machinery. That is a gross failure of this government. As I said before, we've seen over 100 stations across New South Wales that have run out of diesel. Thirty-five of them have run out of all fuel, but, according to this government, there is still no problem to see here and no supply issue. This is everybody filling up with jerry cans.

Tourism, cabins, caravans—they're losing their bookings. Everybody's cancelling right across my good state, one of the best states in Australia to go holiday. We've seen the cost of construction going up—PVC pipes are up by 30 per cent and HDP up by 36 per cent. The cost of building your homes is going to go up because of this fuel crisis. Cootamundra council just instructed all of their staff that they couldn't use their bulk storage of diesel. They had to now use their fuel cards and go and find other petrol stations where they could fill up. There's no supply issue here!

Big orders of 80,000 litres to 100,000 litres of fuel are not being fulfilled for the farmers that need it, and independent retailers supplying farmers are going to be the first to lose out. It's the independent retailers that are the ones that supply those good farmers so that they can feed our nation.

We've also seen at least six shipments cancelled or deferred supply coming in from mid-April, so the problem is only going to get worse. What the Australian people need is for the government to be upfront with them—not to obfuscate and not to shirk responsibility but to tell them what they're going to do to protect their fuel and get them the fuel that they need. They don't need to be told to work from home. That's not a real answer. They don't need a fuel coordinator. They've got an energy minister. Why isn't he doing his job of providing fuel to this nation? (Time expired)