Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

Let's start with addressing some of the gross hypocrisy we've heard in this place over the last hour. First of all, hypocrisy No. 1 is from the Greens, who pretend they want to raise more money from gas when they actually want to close down the industry and generate zero tax dollars from gas. Hypocrisy No. 2, of course, is from those directly opposite, the Labor Party, who sat on their hands for weeks knowing that a fuel shock was highly likely. On 25 February, they recalled families of ambassadors and diplomatic staff from the Middle East back to Australia. They knew that there was a high likelihood of a highly risky event in the Middle East, but they did nothing about the situation that would face Australia if, as happened, the Middle East entered conflict and the supplies of crude, in particular, but also refined product became less available.

Then what did we hear from the government once it was clear that there was an issue? Nothing. Crickets. 'There's nothing to see here—no crisis, no problem.' Then we heard them blaming the Australian people. 'It's a demand problem.' I'm sorry, but farmers want to start seeding. Truck drivers want to make sure they can get across the Nullarbor. All the tens of thousands of Australians who rely on driving for their principal form of income and who wanted to secure their jobs, to secure their businesses and to secure their income, naturally, in the face of government inaction, decided to fill up their tanks. This is not the fault of Australians. This is the fault of a government who was asleep at the wheel.

We were standing up in this place and saying—not fearmongering—'We understand there's enough fuel in the system, but why are there these maldistribution issues?' And the government was saying, 'There is no problem. There is no crisis,' when we knew there were fuel stations on the verge of running out of fuel. Now, today, we see 100 stations in New South Wales without any diesel and 35 without any fuel of any sort. And the government appoints a tsar. I cannot imagine a situation where you could have seen a less effectual response from a government than the ones we've seen.

Let's correct a couple of pieces of absolute misinformation that we've seen in this current debate. It was the former government and, in fact, Angus Taylor as minister who actually secured our ability to refine in this country. Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, I know you will know this, but do you know how much we paid for the fuel that was stored under our name in Texas? We actually didn't pay anything for it. We were paid to store it there because fuel, at that time, had a negative price. Australia was actually paid to have its reserves in the country that is our strongest international ally. What does this government do over the course of an increasingly serious situation with our domestic fuel supply? They seek to blame the Liberal Party—how they manage that is beyond me—whilst they themselves are asleep at the wheel.

Again, you know that I spoke about the risk of force majeure events happening in the fuel supply chain 10 days ago. 10 days ago I was speaking about that, but the minister was saying, 'No crisis here,' and suddenly, today, we have six boats being turned around. Well, 10 days ago, we had force majeure clauses being imposed by refineries in Singapore—our principal supplier of many types of fuel. The idea that those sorts of clauses weren't going to be exercised by shipping companies was ludicrous—a minister incompetent and asleep at the wheel.