Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. In a fuel crisis, this bill deals with an important issue. It is incredibly important that we deal with it as we see fuel prices going through the roof. Right now, across Australia, working people are feeling the sharp edge of rising fuel prices. This bill amends the Fair Work Act to create a fast-track emergency mechanism for regulating the pay and conditions of the road transport industry. Simply put, this bill gives the minister and the Fair Work Commission rapid response powers to impose temporary minimum standards, like fuel cost recovery, across the road transport industry in an emergency. The goal is to ensure that transport workers and contractors can recover sudden cost increases, like fuel, rather than absorbing them. It follows on from changes made to the closing-loopholes reforms to ensure that the Fair Work Commission has the power to deal with pressures on workers and businesses in the road transport sector. The Greens supported those measures.

But we need to talk about why this bill is before us today. We're debating this bill in the shadow of, and as a direct result of, Trump and Netanyahu's illegal war and attack in Iran, which have unleashed more chaos across the Middle East and are clearly threatening global peace. Just like other US wars, this war was not to bring about safety or freedom to the brave Iranian people resisting the regime that they face every day. History is clear: you cannot bomb your way to peace. This rapidly-escalating conflict has already sent shockwaves through global energy markets, and it's pushing our fuel costs through the roof here in Australia. The closure of key shipping routes, like the Strait of Hormuz, has disrupted a significant share of global oil supply, pushing our fuel prices higher and higher, and ordinary people are paying the price, as ever, for the costs of war through casualties but also through inflation and the fuel and other cost-of-living increases that Australians are feeling the harsh effects of every day. Workers pay an especially high price—the cost of price-gouged fuel, groceries, interest rates, mortgages and rents.

We know rising fuel prices feed directly into inflation, and we have seen warnings that food prices will rise, construction costs will increase due to fuel surcharges and essential services will become more expensive. We know farmers around our nation are suffering, and that will feed through into food prices. This is how energy shocks spread through the economies and around the world, yet at the same time wages are not keeping up. Workers are being squeezed from both sides—from higher costs, from interest rates going up and from stagnant incomes—and it's getting worse and worse as the war drags on. Treasury modelling predicts that inflation could go beyond five per cent as a direct result, and Treasurer Chalmers has now said that is a conservative estimate. We saw in COVID that workers pay a price very early, and it's a high price. They lose hours, they lose jobs, they lose incomes.

This illegal war, backed by Labor—Australia was the first country in the world to leap to backing Trump and Netanyahu in this illegal war—is costing workers, families and people relying on government benefits a very great deal. It's a cost in terms of fear and concern for so many Australians who now live in fear for the lives and safety of their friends and family and the citizens—women, men and children—living in the Middle East. It's a huge economic cost to workers and their households. This is a conflict that Australians want nothing to do with, but they are paying the price for it. The latest Guardian Essential poll found that only one in four Australians approve of the US-Israel war on Iran. Only a third supported this government's actions in sending a military plane and troops to the region.

Despite the lack of public support for this government's involvement in the war, the consequences have been immediate and severe. Here in Australia, we've seen diesel prices jump from around $1.66 a litre to over $3 in a matter of weeks, and they're only going one way. They're going to continue to go up. This is a war where, as Germany's defence minister said recently:

… there was no consultation, there is no strategy, there is no clear objective and the worst thing from my perspective is that there is no exit strategy.

He is spot on. Right now, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence can unilaterally take Australia to war with no parliamentary oversight before the decision is made. That's why my colleague, Senator Shoebridge, reintroduced a bill to this place last week that would require the houses of parliament to vote before the government can send Australians to wars overseas.

We know that 90 per cent of Australians support this reform, and most are astounded that the parliament does not already have that power. Australians should decide when they go to war, not Washington, not a handful of people in the war parties and not on the whim of the unpredictable maniac, Donald Trump. We are living through the chaos of a war that's supported by a handful of powerful people without public consent, and this war is directly making the lives of Australian workers harder. The cost is especially high for those who work in the transport industry. The bottom of the road transport supply chain are transport workers and self-employed truck drivers whose livelihoods and the livelihoods of their kids and their communities' families are already being hit so hard by those sharp increases in fuel prices.

People like Frank Black, a member of the Transport Workers' Union, who's been a long-distance owner-driver for more than 30 years, who I met recently, have had their diesel cost gone up directly from $1,600 to fill his tank to $2,500 last week. No doubt, it's probably even more today. Frank Black's earnings have been wiped out. He cannot run his business. That pain should be shared along the road transportation and product distribution and retail chain. This bill shortens the delay in changed terms and pay conditions of transport workers. It offers them some protection. In an emergency like the one we're in, we have to support those workers and their families so that, on this one issue, we can make sure that the price and the pain of this emergency does not fall unfairly on those at the end of the supply chain and on their families. I acknowledge the work of the Transport Workers' Union in calling on the government to pursue this change. The TWU national secretary, Michael Kaine, has said that, without putting in place these emergency powers, we'll see more transport workers will die on our roads, more businesses will go under and supply chains will continue to be at breaking point, as they are today.

This bill is called the fairer fuel bill because it aims to make the cost of fuel fairer for workers in the road transport industry during this time of crisis. But what does this bill do for all those workers whose hours of work and jobs are being affected by this emergency—all those workers in other parts of industry sectors. It does nothing for them. Who is helping all those workers in the care economy, child care, aged care and disability services who are using their cars and paying for the fuel to look after the people they feel so responsible for and are paid to take care for? Who is helping those in the manufacturing industry, our hospitals, schools, and retail and hospitality sectors who are also being affected by really significant changes in their fuel costs. These workers are impacted by the fuel crisis. Their bills are through the roof too. I've heard directly from Australians that many of them are spending $50 a day in cities like Sydney just to get to and from work—for fuel and for tolls. The costs of this fuel crisis are painfully felt by them in their communities. The aged-care sector is having difficulty getting staff to come in, because they can't afford the fuel costs.

Instead, we get this bill, which, while important, does nothing for those sources of pain, for those workers in those other industries who are feeling that deep pain because of the illegal Trump-Netanyahu war that Labor has readily signed us up to without an exit strategy. This bill does nothing for inflation, for interest rate rises, for higher mortgages, for higher rents, for higher grocery costs—and the list goes on. It does nothing for those five million Australians who live on income support payments and who are facing all of these increases in expenses, including their fuel, without any increase in their payments. Their households are reeling.

We need to end this illegal war and we need to end Australia's support for it. We need to take the wide range of measures that we know Australian communities and workers need, including a stronger right to work from home. Working from home will make a real difference in this crisis. People are talking about it. They want to be able to do it and they need to have a stronger basis for their negotiations with their employers to get it in so many sectors where they're still struggling to find that right to work from home.

So, while the Greens support this bill, the government must do more to provide immediate relief to Australians—a broader range of Australians. Labor must make public transport free for the duration of this fuel crisis. The Greens have called for Labor to coordinate free public transport with the states and territories at today's National Cabinet meeting, and momentum is certainly there. This commonsense Greens call is backed by people being smashed at the petrol pump. It's backed by train, tram and bus drivers and now by the ACT and Tasmanian governments as well. Free public transport would be an immediate cost-of-living relief for people in our cities and in our suburbs and would take the pressure off fuel suppliers so farmers and people living in our regions can fill up and regional servos don't run dry.

It's also worth mentioning who's benefiting while workers and those living on benefits suffer. Large oil and gas companies are raking in wartime profits, and they are long overdue to pay their fair share of tax. Workers should not be paying more than a massive gas corporation selling our key resources to the world with so little tax and more than a majority of that gas without any real tax. We know that the US's illegal war on Iran is making Australian gas corporations even richer. The government needs to act now to stop this war profiteering and ensure that Australians get our fair share of gas wealth. That's why the Greens are fighting for a new, minimum 25 per cent export tax on gas revenue. It is time to act. There is support in our community for this. We must tax these gas companies, especially as they profiteer from these war opportunities. The government has the numbers and the Greens in the Senate. We will work to pass good reforms like that, which would make a huge difference in this crisis and in the longer term.

Australians have been crystal clear: they want to tax gas exports and they want to tax them now. The Greens support this bill because it provides urgently needed relief for those at the bottom of the fuel supply chain. It recognises that fuel price shocks cannot simply be absorbed by those who live and work at the bottom of that supply chain, and it takes steps to move towards more fairness in the way costs are distributed. But let's not pretend this is the end of the story. This is a short-term fix to a long-term set of problems. Our economic stability is deeply entangled with global conflicts over fossil fuels, and this is a position of vulnerability. This crisis underscores the importance of pursuing an independent, peaceful foreign policy—one that prioritises de-escalation, diplomacy and stability. The crisis also shows us how important it is that we have long-term plans for sovereign control of key items, like our fuel supply, like our fertiliser supply.

The increased costs for transport workers—for all workers—are because of this war. Let's not forget it. We must stop supporting it.