Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to our fuel crisis and how people working from home could help ease supply. Australians are really hurting. We want nothing to do with Trump and Netanyahu's illegal war, the war that the war parties in this place have endorsed, and yet here we are suffering its consequences, fleeced by corporations profiteering from death and destruction. While massive gas companies are making huge wartime profits, there are Australians who are paying $50 a day to get to and from work. I heard from them last week on an extended talkback from Sydney—$50 a day! This is a disgrace. It is a massive bite out of workers' incomes, affecting their families and their communities.

We all agree that working from home allows workers to save money on rising fuel prices and frees up fuel supply for those who can't work from home, but it shouldn't take a fuel crisis for workers to increase and look for flexibility in their workplaces. Two days a week for those who can practically do it is a real win for workers, and that's why we in the Greens have put forward a work-from-home bill in this parliament to do just that. Labor said they will always back your right to work from home. Well, this is Labor's chance to give workers some legal backing, for those workers who really struggle to get their boss to say yes to the flexibility that is practically doable and will make such a difference to workers in doing their jobs. It's a massive pay increase in terms of savings on fuels and tolls. That would give immediate cost-of-living relief and take pressure off fuel supplies so that those who really need that fuel in our regions, our farmers, can fill up and regional servos aren't running dry.

The Greens will always stand with workers for flexibility and the chance to work from home where you can. This government needs to step up and help ordinary people with the costs that they're facing and the flexibility they need and to meet the cost of the fuel crisis. (Time expired)