Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Energy policy—you've kept clinging to net zero like a life raft for your EU trade agreement. Well, how is that going to help us when we have no sovereignty over our own fuel? We need to be looking at the business going offshore and why we haven't been getting new oil and gas projects up and running and ensuring that our country is better prepared.

You heard the minister then talk about the ACCC powers: 'They can hand out higher bills.' The government did not change the ACCC's powers to actually make sure they can examine and investigate price gouging by big international oil companies, who are holding regional Australia and our agricultural industry, particularly, to ransom during this crisis. And, yes, we need families to have relief at the bowser right now, and that's something that should have already happened. And our trucking industry is desperate. This is what they've actually asked for. What are you giving them? You're allowing the TWU into the contractual arrangements for the trucking industry, but that's okay.

My inbox, like everyone's here, has been absolutely flooded with local businesses seeking relief. We've got a transport operator, a third-generation transport business—the viability of their business is threatened with the rapid increase of fuel prices and an immediate cash flow crisis. That's why the transport industry has also been asking the government about GST relief and about actually giving them what we gave them during COVID: six months of relief from lending arrangements with banking and other creditors.

It's a cash flow crisis. Truckies are parking their trucks and not filling them up, because they can't afford to. Declaring this the emergency that it is, instigating disaster-relief packages for our industries—that's exactly what the industry has been calling for. And, once again, this government has done nothing.