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

Well, 937 fuel stations is the number of fuel stations that have no fuel right now. That's 50 more than last week. Yet, what does the government keep telling us? 'There's not a problem. In fact, we have more fuel than we had before the crisis began.' Try telling that to farmers who can't get fuel or fertiliser to harvest or plant. Try telling that to small mining companies who can't operate their mine. Try telling that to local governments who don't have fuel to pick up rubbish. This is not a problem of supply. This is a problem of distribution, and we have been raising it for five weeks since this began. It seems unbelievable to me that the government continues to gaslight Australians, saying: 'There's no problem. It must be your problem. Maybe you bought too much fuel.' How ridiculous is that, when Australia's cost of living is already going through the roof thanks to out-of-control spending under this government. This only makes it worse, when farmers are talking about if it's worth harvesting their crop, much less sending it to the supermarkets.

This is a fuel crisis that the government is not managing. The fuel tsar, who also manages water—we all know that oil and water don't mix—tells us she'll have the report back in a month. It's cold comfort to most of us. The Prime Minister told the Australian people that he would turn up when things got tough. But now that things have got tough, the system has started to crack, and Labor is not showing up. They're choosing to gaslight the Australian people instead. The coalition believes in Australia. We will drill more, we will mine more, and we will have more domestic gas production.