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

Thank you. So, we further cement this disadvantage between our regions and rural parts of the state and the cities, where we continue to subsidise those public transport arrangements. But I am pleased that the Crisafulli government has embedded 50c fares in Queensland for those people who are fortunate enough to be able to enjoy it.

I want to continue, though. The Greens, with this urgency motion, have continued to somehow think that they can hypothecate gas taxes with public transport. Given that the government doesn't hypothecate fuel excises to road maintenance—to a whole lot of things that you would normally think would be linked—I think it would be reasonable to think this is a complete fantasy. The Greens are continuing to ignore the fact that gas is so important to our energy security, particularly at a time when we rely on the countries that we export to for liquid fuels. The Greens are proposing that we tell those countries that we're going to increase the cost to them of gas—something that's critical for their energy needs—at the same time as we are begging them for fuel; the Prime Minister is out there negotiating with those countries to maintain liquid fuel supplies to Australians.

We've heard today just how desperate Australians are to receive fuel. It is more than $4 a litre for diesel in parts of Queensland now, if you can get it. So this idea that we are going to damage those relationships by increasing gas taxes—future investment will be frozen and damaged. It is extraordinary. It is a dismal state that our economy exists in now under Labor. Inflation is high. Interest rates are high. Real wages are lower. We have a high cost of living because of this government's out-of-control spending. All of this happened prior to the conflict in the Middle East. This is not new. So we want to see reduced red tape and streamlined approval processes so that we can get more investment into Australia and more prosperity, not less.