Sean Bell (NSW, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australians need to understand just how serious this moment is. The crisis we are in, that we're dealing with right now, has been caused by Labor's failure to prepare and Labor's failure to act swiftly. But this crisis is also only a drop in the ocean compared to what One Nation fears is coming down the pipeline. What we are seeing today is the result of the Albanese Labor government's choice to ignore the warning signs and waste precious time, and their choice to refuse to act until this crisis could no longer be denied. And they did deny it; they denied this crisis for a month, as One Nation warned them what was happening.

Now we are moving emergency legislation to respond to this crisis that they wanted to pretend wasn't happening. If not for us fighting them tooth and nail, forcing them to act, I don't know if we'd even be here today, moving this legislation. It was a complete failure of leadership. That delay, that denial and that incompetence matters. It matters because a month wasted matters. It's a month too late now for farmers who were unable to plant their crops on time or harvest their crops on time. It's a month too late for transport operators, trying to keep goods moving across this country, who are now facing exorbitant bills. It's a month too late for regional communities who are already being smashed by higher fuel costs. And that delay means they will be facing higher costs for longer. It's a month too late to shield Australians from the absolute worst of the fuel shock that has now flooded through this economy. If we'd acted sooner, the problems would have been less severe.

At One Nation, we saw this coming. We were the first to call for a cut to fuel excise because we understood that every extra cent on fuel hits families, small businesses, freight and food prices. We knew this. We advocated for this. We said this was the solution. It's good that the government is now adopting this, but they were too slow to act.

I will also point out that One Nation was the first to raise the fact that, off these soaring prices, the GST revenue is increasing up to $300 million a month. I will give credit to the state premiers who are now raising this and talking about it at National Cabinet to see if there's a way that they can look to forgo some of this revenue. They've raised that, and credit to them, because it is what we have been pointing out and what we have been calling for.

We have put forward commonsense steps early. Labor chose to ignore them until it was too late to stop the worst of the pain being inflicted. And the truth is simple: if our fuel is insecure, which it clearly is, that means our nation's food security is insecure. Farmers need diesel to plant, irrigate, fertilise, harvest and transport. Truckies need fuel to move supplies. Regional businesses need fuel to operate. Without reliable fuel, the whole chain starts to break. And the cost does not stay at the bowser; it hits supermarket shelves, family budgets and, ultimately, the entire nation's economy.

But, as serious as this crisis is, Australians must not fool themselves into thinking that this is the full extent of the danger, or that these measures that we're putting through today will solve the danger. They will not. What we're dealing with now is only a warning. The current disruption has exposed just how fragile Australia has become. We are too dependent on overseas supply chains. We are too slow to prepare for shocks. We do not have the resources. We can no longer make the fuel we need in our own country to protect ourselves from these predictable crises. And that is because of Labor's obsession with net zero, which is why One Nation's position is clear: we must scrap net zero now. Net zero is making Australia weaker, not stronger. It is making energy dearer, industry less competitive and our country more exposed. It punishes every sector that keeps Australia running, while forcing us towards unreliable systems and imported food—everything. And it leaves us completely dependent on other countries. That is not a responsible way to run a country. That is an act of national self-harm.

As Senator Hanson rightly points out, if we wind up having to deal with the conflict in Taiwan it will make the crisis we are dealing with now look like nothing. We are woefully unprepared to deal with that, and nothing we are doing today is going to help us prepare. So we must take steps to prepare. We must scrap net zero. We must move to more refining, proper storage of our fuel. If we don't act now, the next crisis will be infinitely worse.