Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Today, I introduce the Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026.

This bill amends the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to double maximum penalties for misconduct under competition law and the Australian Consumer Law, from $50 million to $100 million.

These laws help tackle price gouging at its source, outlawing:

The even stronger penalties we are introducing will empower the ACCC to throw the book at any companies who illegally and unfairly increase their prices.

Since the start of the war, we have seen much higher prices for petrol and diesel across the country.

It has put more pressure on motorists and families already doing it tough.

Our message to petrol retailers has been clear: you are on notice; do not use the conflict to take advantage of Australians.

Now they'll face penalties up to $100 million per offence if they do.

These penalties apply across the economy.

This will help ensure all retailers and suppliers, from fuel companies to supermarkets and the entire supply chain in between, do not use the war in the Middle East as an excuse for illegal and unfair pricing.

The states and territories share the Albanese government's sense of urgency. Reforms to the Australian Consumer Law require agreement of the states and territories, and I want to thank every one of them for swiftly confirming their agreement to support these reforms.

The ACCC has been clear they won't hesitate to take action to protect consumers and markets, and they'll seek the highest penalties appropriate in any case they take to court.

This bill is an important way we are protecting consumers and securing Australia's fuel security, but it's not the only way.

We have already:

The bill also brings Australia's competition law penalties into closer alignment with comparable economies.

It's the latest step in our strong track record of competition and consumer reforms since coming to government in 2022.

We have already legislated the single biggest reform to Australia's merger laws in 50 years.

We're introducing unfair trading practice arrangements to protect consumers and small businesses, including farmers and producers.

We've increased ACCC funding by over $30 million to go after supermarkets using misleading pricing tactics.

We're strengthening the Unit Pricing Code to tackle shrinkflation, and have made the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct mandatory, with tough penalties to stop supermarkets from unfairly squeezing suppliers.

We're reforming non-compete clauses and other employment restraints.

We're extending the right to repair to agricultural machinery.

We're making it easier for new businesses to enter the market by incentivising the states and territories to cut commercial and industrial planning and zoning red tape under the revitalised National Competition Policy.

Backed by our $900 million National Productivity Fund, we're working with the states and territories on:

All of this is about making sure Australian families get a fair go and easing the pressure where we can.

My message to fuel companies is clear.

If you do the right thing by your customers, our government is here to support you.

But if you take advantage of foreign conflicts and take Australians for mugs, the ACCC will throw the book at you.

That's what these laws are all about.

Full details of the measure are contained in the explanatory memorandum.

I commend this bill to the chamber.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026. Let us be abundantly clear. This bill exists because Australia is in a fuel crisis, and the Albanese Labor government failed to act early enough to prevent it. The coalition will not oppose tougher enforcement, but it is not going to pretend that doubling penalties fixes the underlying problem that Australians are facing at the bowser today. This bill is the result of failure. It comes to this parliament only after fuel prices have spiralled beyond control and after Australians have already started to pay the price. The coalition supports staff enforcement, and it always has, but good policy anticipates problems rather than reacts after the damage is done. The coalition will not oppose this bill today, but it will use this opportunity to hold the Labor Albanese government accountable for a serious and growing cost-of-living crisis.

This bill proposes to double the maximum penalties available for breaches of competition and consumer law. That is a significant change and is one that the parliament should examine carefully. Penalties matter. They are meant to deter serious misconduct. Simply increasing penalties does not on its own create deterrence. What matters is whether those penalties are targeted, proportionate and backed by evidence and sound policy. Those questions matter even more in the economic environment that Australians are living in today. Australia is facing a genuine national fuel crisis. In many parts of the country, petrol prices are about $2.50 a litre, if not more, and diesel is well over $3 a litre and rising. Prices are changing so fast that these figures are very quickly outdated. In fact, they might be outdated even now. This hurts families, farmers, freight operators, manufacturers, small businesses and entire regional communities across this country. Australians understand that global pressures exist. But when those pressures hit Australians expect clarity, urgency and leadership from their government.

Instead, in recent weeks, Australians have been told different things at different times by different ministers while fuel prices have continued to climb higher and higher each and every day. This is why Australians are fast losing trust in this government when it comes to fuel. This government didn't warn Australians. They didn't act early. Let us not forget that their solution was to tell people to buy less fuel. This fuel crisis didn't emerge overnight. The warning signs were there, and this government chose not to act. That does raise a serious question about whether what we are debating today is considered reform or simply a reactive response to a crisis that this government has failed to manage. Doubling penalties is by definition retrospective. It punishes misconduct after the damage is already done. It will not put one extra litre of fuel into the Australian market, and it will do nothing to lower Australia's fuel prices today. That doesn't mean the penalties are unimportant, but we must be honest with Australians about what this bill can do and what this bill cannot do.

The ACCC already has significant enforcement powers, and courts already impose serious penalties when misconduct is proven. That makes this government's delay impossible to explain, because if these tools existed all along then why did the government wait until Australians were paying record prices to act? The coalition's position is clear. We support strong enforcement. We support penalties that deter real misconduct. But we don't want to see enforcement being used to mask policy failure. That is why, while we will support this bill today, we will continue to hold the government to account for its failures in regard to this fuel crisis, because this is a real crisis that Australians are facing right now. It is a crisis that is affecting households, small businesses and entire sectors of the economy. As I say, for that reason the coalition is not going to obstruct necessary measures, but we are not going to stay silent while Australians pay record prices because this government acted too late, spoke too loosely and is now legislating after the fact.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fair dinkum! This Senate is existing in some kind of alternative reality in relation to this war, in relation to who started the war, in relation to Iran's actions and in relation to the fuel price and availability crisis currently being endured by the Australian people. This Senate is living in an alternative reality.

The real facts are these. Fact 1 is that the Labor Party supports this war. The Prime Minister was one of the first global leaders out after the US and Israel illegally engaged in an unprovoked attack on Iran saying he thought it was a good idea. He has been joined by the Liberal Party, the National Party and One Nation—the parties of war in this place. What we are getting today from all of these parties is that, somehow, the fuel crisis in Australia manifested out of thin air. Well, it didn't manifest out of thin air. It was an entirely predictable consequence of the illegal aggression against Iran perpetrated by the US, perpetrated by Israel and cheerled by our sycophantic, mediocre Prime Minister. That's fact 1.

Fact 2 is that Iran didn't wake up one morning and decide to start bombing petrochemical facilities in the Gulf region. What actually started the war was an unprovoked, illegal act by the US and Israel. That's what started the war. Iran's actions are not a provocation; they are a retaliation to an illegal provocation from the US and Israel, cheerled by the Labor Party. The Labor Party used to oppose wars back in the day, but they haven't seen a US war they didn't love in the last couple of decades, because they've abandoned their roots. They've forgotten where they came from as a political movement. They're far more interested in sucking up to Donald Trump than they are in calling for global peace and an end to the suffering, the death, the misery, the injuries and the displacement of millions of people across Iran, Southern Lebanon and elsewhere.

Do you know who's paying for the warmongers—for the Labor Party, the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation? If you want to just look in a domestic context, do you know who's paying? It's the people who are trying to get fuel at the moment. They're the people who are paying. No-one who supports this war should come in here and pretend that the fuel crisis is somehow happening in isolation. This was an entirely predictable consequence of the illegal invasion and bombardment of Iran perpetrated by Israel and the United States and cheerled by the Labor Party, cheerled by the Liberals, cheerled by the Nationals and cheerled on by One Nation. This was so obviously what was going to happen.

All of the wargames that have been conducted for decades said this was going to happen. Don't pretend you did not know this would happen. Of course it was going to happen. Of course Australians were going to pay the price at the petrol bowser. But I want to say, very clearly, to Australians unfortunately and tragically for the people in the Gulf region, we have not seen nothing yet. The human consequences overseas, the economic consequences and the material pain for Australians have unfortunately barely begun. There is no scenario where things go back to the way they used to be anytime soon, and there is every chance that this war is a cataclysmic black-swan event for the global economy. And it will be because of the war criminals Trump and Netanyahu, and because no-one in this place, apart from the Australian Greens, had the stones to stand up and say, 'We want peace, not war.'

Well, you reap what you sow. Every one of you should be held responsible by the Australian people for the economic pain they're feeling, let alone the people over there who are being murdered—

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim—

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and smeared across the landscape—

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim! Resume your seat.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and bloodily dismembered in their thousands—

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim! Senator McKim, I will remind you that we do need to behave in a way that reflects the chamber. Could you also please move your second reading amendment, if you so desire.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) price gouging is not banned under Australian law except in relation to supermarkets,

(ii) this bill will do nothing to stop fuel corporations from price gouging because it only increases penalties on existing offences, and

(iii) Labor ministers that claim this bill will stop fuel corporations price gouging are misleading the Australian public; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) stop backing President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu's illegal war on Iran, which is a key driver of skyrocketing fuel prices, and

(ii) extend the supermarket price gouging ban across the whole economy, including to fuel corporations".

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

I rise to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026, in the very small amount of time allotted to this chamber, to debate a bill where we actually seek to increase the penalties available to the ACCC. But what I'd like to have seen, as we enter the fourth week of this fuel crisis, is the ACCC on the streets, checking up on local servos, knocking on the doors of the big four fuel suppliers and launching investigations into how the market was operating and whether gouging was occurring. Was there unconscionable behaviour when there were rumours of hedging and hoarding of fuel?

We're seeing a trucking industry now struggling with the biggest increase in fuel prices ever. Even at the height of the Ukraine war, fuel prices increased 40c a litre; we are now in excess of 80c to 90c a litre. That flows on through our entire economy. Australians are struggling, now, to pay for the fuel they need to get to work and to get their kids to and from schools. Industries are struggling to even get supplies of diesel and petrol to keep our agriculture industry going, and our mining industry—which pays the bills in this country—as well as our fishing industry and beyond.

As we've seen in reports today, as we head into the fourth week, there is no doubt there are flow-on impacts right across our economy. There are claims that this hit will be equivalent to three interest rate rises. So, for households already struggling with Jim Chalmers's and Anthony Albanese's cost-of-living crisis, this couldn't come at a worse time.

While state and federal governments play the blame game—'It's your problem; you take the lead;' 'No, it's your problem; you take the lead'—it's mums and dads lining up at suburban fuel stations or having to make the tough decisions about what they do or don't do or participate in. We're seeing absenteeism increase in the manufacturing, retail and construction workforces right now. That's what's happening outside of Canberra.

As the shadow transport minister, I've been in conversations, since day one, with our trucking industry, who've called for this to be declared a national disaster because truckies are going broke. They were going broke at a rate of two businesses a week before the crisis, and it has only gotten worse. They've asked the federal government for disaster recovery arrangements to be activated, to help small trucking businesses with cash grants, and concessional loans for those businesses with fewer than 20 employees, because they can't afford to pass the fuel increases on.

They've asked for the road user charge to be removed. Truckies are paying 32c a litre. The government could have removed that with a pen stroke and given immediate relief three weeks ago. It could allow higher productivity freight vehicles so you can move more kit to Coles and Woolworths, to shelves. We just need regulatory change. We need someone to sign a bit of paper. We can't get that done. NatRoad calls for cutting the road user charge. We need state-level owner-driver cost orders. The shipping industry needs the coastal trading act relaxed so that imports can move freight more efficiently. There are so many suggestions, including GST relief for our trucking industry—the tax on the tax. You could have done that on day 1. Instead, this government has taken four weeks to bring forward increasing the penalties of the ACCC. I've yet to see the ACCC prosecute anyone in the last four weeks. I don't know how many penalties they've actually handed out.

Do you know what the Prime Minister's big announcement is? It's that he's got a plan to bring premiers to Canberra, in four days time, to come up with a national plan on how to save our country. These guys are incompetent, and Australia deserves better. (Time expired)

Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation was the first party to call this fuel shortage a crisis. We were the first to call it to the attention of this parliament. That was three weeks ago. We asked how much fuel we had on hand, and we were all told that there wasn't a problem, just right-wing extremism and Aussies buying too much fuel. Now today we now have the Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026 being rushed forward through our parliament because the Albanese government is panicking. We have a big crisis. Minister Chris Bowen must declare a national fuel emergency and force supply to the regions. One Nation is investigating alternative fuel supplies.

Our policy will cut fuel excise. Our policy will cut the GST paid on fuel. The Albanese government is profiting $300 million a month from the souring spike in fuel prices, while Australians are struggling. As the pain at the pump increases so too does the government's GST take on every litre. The government is taking 52.6c from every litre in excise tax and then applying a 10 per cent GST on top of the total sale. It's an absolute disgrace. We've seen the price of diesel double over the last few weeks, and that's if you can get it. The offences that this bill amends is to increase penalties that—guess what?—no-one has ever been charged under, not once. Zero multiplied by double is still zero. This bill won't do anything to crack down on the supply manipulation by big oil companies.

That's why One Nation has called for the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act to be triggered—so that supply can be forced out into the regions, bringing down prices for everyone. Over 500 service stations across Australia have run out of fuel. In my home state of WA, the Shire President of Esperance has revealed that fuel arriving in the town port is trucked 1,400 kilometres in tankers all the way to Perth before it comes all the way back to Esperance so that it can be available at the local service stations.

Our farmers are hurting. Our farmers are seeding soon, and putting a crop in at a much greater cost is a potential double hit, if farmers can't put enough fertiliser in at seeding due to unavailability and cost. If our farmers aren't getting the fuel and support they need, where is our food going to come from? Australia has got to have a plan. One Nation's plan is clear: trigger the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984, force supply to be delivered to regional areas and independent distributors, prioritise defence and essential services, drop the fuel excise for three months or the GST on fuel to reduce cost pressure. GST tax relief on fuel for three months is $300 million per month. Develop policies that allow Australia to find, process and distribute fuel—and net zero. Refine our own fuel and build more refineries. Consider a national reserve with crude oil companies to prioritise supply to Australia. The needs of Australia must be catered to first. Increase our fuel storage capacity. Strategic storage must be controlled by Australia on Australian shores. And remove the impediments to using domestically produced fuel.

I see that the Greens have tacked on an amendment to this bill on price gouging. One Nation spoke on this extensively previously, but I'll just state again for the record that the government already has the powers to act on market manipulation by supermarkets—and it should use these powers. The Greens' amendment is vaguely worded and unworkable, and One Nation will not support it.

One Nation will abolish net zero and stop the billions in subsidies that Australians are paying for wind turbines. This will not only reduce power bills and rescue families and businesses but it will put about $30 billion back into the pockets of Australians by abolishing the department of climate change. This will resolve many of the issues businesses are facing by trying to meet the net zero safeguard mechanism targets. One Nation has been saying that we need to be self-reliant—that Australia must stand on our own two feet—for decades. We need to regain our sovereignty. We must take control of our country back. One Nation has a plan, the Greens have outrage and the Labor government have no plan.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the bill before the Senate: the Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026. We have been imploring the government, the Liberal Party and the National Party now, for over three weeks, to take action to assist Australians in managing what is now a fuel crisis across our country. Let's be very clear. At 4 o'clock today—because this bill will go through the Senate in 35 minutes—let's not pretend that this bill fixes the real problem that Australians have been telling the government they are facing for three weeks now.

Service stations across Australia are not just running dry—they have run dry. In other words, you turn up at a service station in Australia and you may well find out it has run out of fuel. Our truckies are telling us that they are now worried about keeping freight moving across our great country. Our country is a big one. It relies on our transport sector working efficiently. The truckies are saying that they don't know if this will continue to occur. Our farmers could not have been clearer. They have been begging this government to help them get diesel—not since yesterday or the day before but for the last three weeks. Do you know why? Because they have a planting window. If they don't plant during that window, guess what? There are no crops. AUSVEG has been pretty clear. Get the fuel to where it needs to be.

Small businesses across Australia are now saying to the government, 'We don't even know if we're going to be open next week.' On top of that, people across Australia are now cancelling their Easter plans. Why? Because they're already in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, they've just been hit with another interest rate rise and they now see the price of fuel at the bowser, which has hit $3 and is probably going to $4. They cannot afford now to go away at Easter. The government, to every question we ask them, says, 'We understand the pain Australians are feeling.' You've been saying that now for four years; you've done nothing about it and the pain has gotten worse. They say they're taking practical action. Today, I call on Minister Bowen to take this practical action.

The S-Bend service station 30 kilometres south of Geraldton—the only fuel station within a 60 kilometre radius—have said that they are running out of fuel. Yesterday, in fact, they ran out of diesel. This is the practical action that Minister Bowen can take. The government has said that there is more fuel in Australia circulating than there was before the Iran crisis began. Australians understand this. As of today, there is currently more fuel in this country than there was before the crisis. This is the practical action the minister can take this afternoon. The S-Bend—the only servo within a 60 kilometre radius—has run out of diesel. You know where the diesel is. This is what the minister can do right now. It's 3.30 pm Eastern Daylight Time. You can pick up the phone to the companies—because you know where the fuel is; you know where the tankers are—and you can direct one of them to start driving to the S-Bend servo 30 kilometres outside of Geraldton.

Let me also tell you—you want to talk about practical action. Here's some practical action. The waste recycling industry association have been clear, saying, 'We will not be picking up people's rubbish.' If that's not bad enough, they've also said, in relation to the health sector and the aged-care sector, that problems start if rubbish is not being picked up within 48 hours and public health problems will commence. They have been left off the fuel priority list by this government and they have said that is potentially catastrophic. The minister, today, can actually amend the fuel priority list and add the waste collection industry.

This is a government that likes to have meetings when all it needs to do is pick up the blasted phone and call the blasted fuel companies. You know where the fuel is; you're just too lazy and you don't like action. There are two practical things the minister can do: get a tanker, please, to the S-Bend servo near Geraldton and please ensure our rubbish bins are collected.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This so-called crackdown on price gouging is a con. It will do nothing to stop price gouging, and it won't stop corporations using the cover of war to rip people off. It does not do what it says on the tin. This legislation increases penalties for companies caught lying about ripping you off, but it doesn't actually stop them from ripping you off, which it could do if the Greens' amendment passes. But let's see if that happens, because this government would rather just gaslight people about what it's doing and tinker around the edges than actually fix the problem. What is the point of stopping petrol companies lying about price gouging when you could simply stop them from price gouging in the first place? It is the ultimate window-dressing and will do nothing to fix the real pain that people are feeling.

The Greens want to make price gouging illegal right across the economy—no tinkering and no loopholes that corporations can exploit. Just ban it. Make it illegal. We drafted a bill to do that, and we brought it into this place. And who do you think voted against it? The Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the National Party and One Nation. All of these parties voted against stopping price gouging just two weeks ago. This bill is just trying to make the government look like they're doing something while they just continue to do absolutely nothing meaningful to stop price gouging. Australians are being slugged at the bowser thanks to a war that this government is backing and was the first in the world to back, and your response is to simply fiddle at the margins as usual. There are no provisions in Australian law that stop fuel companies price gouging, because you are not backing them. All this bill does is increase penalties for existing offences. Why are you misleading the public by implying that this bill does something that it does not do? People are hurting, and they need a government that is willing to stand up to big corporations, their obscene profiteering and their price gouging and actually offer real cost-of-living relief.

The price of fuel is the No. 1 topic on people's lips in the country right now, and it is the biggest domestic impact of an illegal war that your government has backed and that all of the war parties in this chamber have signed up to and continue to support. It is wreaking havoc not just in the Middle East—not just on civilians and school buildings. It is wreaking havoc on Australians in their everyday cost of living at the bowser. Ordinary people are paying the price of this war, and the big corporations are making bank. The gas corporations, the oil corporations, the billionaires and the weapons manufacturers are loving this conflict. It is making them richer, and it is making everybody else's life harder. It is your job to try to fix that. We could be taxing those big corporations, making them pay their fair share and using that revenue to help people. We could be taxing those export gas companies whose profits have already skyrocketed since this illegal war began weeks ago and using that money to help people. We could make public transport free, stop price gouging and actually invest in the things that make people live a good life and help them deal with the pressures that they're under. It might sound crazy, but, maybe on a bill that talks about price gouging, you should actually fix price gouging. That's precisely what our amendment will do.

The impacts of this war are not going to stop at petrol, though. We already know that fertiliser costs are going to go up, and that will flow through to both farmers and food prices. Under pressure from the Greens, three months ago the government finally brought in restrictions on price gouging by the big supermarkets, but do you think it's taken effect yet? No. They're making people wait six months before it takes effect, and they voted against making price gouging illegal across the economy. I wonder how much profit Coles and Woollies will make in the six-month reprieve that they've got to continue to profiteer off people, to continue to mislead people and to continue to rip people off. If this government actually wants to stop petrol companies from ripping people off, price gouging families and truckies for $3 or more a litre, then you could actually just stop price gouging, you could get us out of this illegal war, you could tax the big corporations and you could invest in helping people address the cost of living.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is facing a genuine, national energy and fuel crisis. We're now seeing those skyrocketing prices at the bowsers, hitting Australian households with petrol around $2.50 per litre for unleaded and up to $3.20 per litre for diesel, prices that many Australians have simply never seen before. No wonder panic is beginning to rise. The uncertainty and the mixed messages that have been coming out of this government have only made the problem worse.

Fuel stations now, we are hearing, are running dry. Around 600 petrol stations around the country are running out of either both types or one type of fuel, and the impact on Australian families is entirely unacceptable. Those rising fuel costs are disconnecting Australian families and communities. It is totally unbelievable that Australian families have to rethink everyday things like a school drop, an extra run to the supermarket where the shelves may well be bare, visiting family over Easter or driving kids to school and to sport just to save money. The planned family holidays over Easter, the most common time of year for a driving holiday, are now being rethought.

Australians expect leadership, and all they have had are mixed messages. We want urgency. We want action. This is only one step, one small contribution to the action plan that we are expecting from government yet seeing so little of. There is concern about prices today, but there is more concern about what happens tomorrow. What happens when the food can't get to the supermarket because fuel prices are too high? What happens when our docks slow down and imports and exports slow dramatically? What happens when farmers stop harvesting or stop planting the next harvest because they're concerned they can't get access to either fertiliser or fuel? What happens when rubbish trucks stop picking up the rubbish from our bins, not just at our homes but at our hospitals and our aged-care centres?

This is what we've seen from this government: a lack of forward thinking and, at the same time, a complete backflip in messaging. First of all, we had, 'There's no problem at all.' In fact, anybody who was saying that there was a problem, that was pointing out that there was a crisis, was some sort of right wing, scaremongering extremist. What an enormous insult that was to all of those Australians outside of the Canberra bubble that could clearly see that there was a problem. The next thing they said was, 'Actually, there is a national crisis. Sorry. We got it wrong and there is a national crisis,' but then they did nothing. Finally, they called a National Cabinet meeting. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming, and that was really so they could push the responsibility back out onto the states. Thank goodness some of the premiers have stepped up, although I do say only some. Then they blamed consumers. I thought this was terrific. 'It's the problem of consumers. They're panic-buying. It's un-Australian to go out and fill your car with petrol when prices are lower today because you know that they're going to be higher tomorrow.' Apparently, that's un-Australian. I would have called that perfectly rational, but it was un-Australian according to Labor. This is a government that has been caught flat-footed, asleep at the wheel and then in denial about the scale of this crisis.

Fuel costs are hitting farmers, manufacturers, freight and logistics. They're hitting small businesses. It's an economy-wide impact that cannot be ignored, and these costs are being directly passed on to consumers. Let's face it, at the end of the day, it's always the consumers that are going to pay. Inflation has run rife in this country for the last four years. It hasn't been kept under control but has been allowed to be unfettered across the country because Labor has failed to do its job. You were already suffering from a cost-of-living crisis before this fuel crisis began.

It's Australian small business that are most under pressure here. They're the ones fighting a fight that no-one's coming to rescue them from. No-one's coming to rescue them. What if the only way you can distribute your goods is through delivery? Now we're seeing Australia Post, a government owned enterprise, increase its fuel levy on small businesses right around the country. It's small businesses that are suffering terribly. They're already facing industrial relations pressure, inflation from government spending, rising taxes and compliance costs. Fuel costs are just another hit on their already stretched margins. It's the worst possible time for the tourism sector, which is relying on this Easter break to be able to fill their coffers, increase their margins, to cover them for the rest of the year.

This crisis is urgent and real. It's hitting Australians right now. The government needs to do one thing. It's got one job, and that is to get fuel flowing. Its priorities are all wrong. This is just going to touch the sides. It's only going to scratch the surface.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contribution on this bill. It is an important bill, and I think the passing of this bill this week, in one of the last things the Senate does in this sitting week, is very important.

The bill doubles the penalties for false or misleading conduct and cartel behaviour to a maximum of $100 million per offence. This is an important part of our response to some of the impacts we are seeing flow through to our economy as a result of the Middle East conflict. These laws will help to tackle price gouging at its source, outlawing false or misleading representations, including lying about the reasons for price increases; price fixing, colluding on prices and other cartel behaviour; misuse of market power to lessen competition, including by refusing to supply to third parties like independent fuel retailers; unfair contract terms, especially in relation to business-to-business conduct, to stop big businesses pushing around small and family businesses; exclusive dealings that reduce competition; and unconscionable conduct, like taking advantage of vulnerable people.

This is important legislation. I thank the Senate for those contributions today. It builds on the action the government has already taken, which includes releasing 20 per cent of the baseline minimum stockholding obligation for petrol and diesel, getting more fuel into the market by temporarily amending the fuel standards, working with the ACCC to authorise major suppliers to get fuel where it's needed in the regions and ramp up fuel price monitoring, and engaging with international partners to strengthen supply chains and fuel security. These are the actions of a responsible government that has been dealing with the impact of the Middle East conflict carefully and appropriately. We will continue to do so as this conflict unfolds and the impacts of the conflict unfold on our economy.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.