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

This morning, according to reports, there are over 870 petrol stations across Australia that have run out of one or more types of petrol. The average price of diesel is now $3.20 per litre. The average price of unleaded is $2.80 per litre. Yet, when the coalition raised this crisis some weeks ago now, Labor ministers told this chamber that there was nothing to see here. In fact, Minister Ayres dismissed it as 'far-right extremist scaremongering'. I would say, on behalf of all Australians, it doesn't feel like scaremongering today. Today the government can't get their legislation passed fast enough.

Industry have been crying out for help for weeks, and they've proposed some very practical and sensible solutions. Is this legislation that the government have presented to us today part of that practical solution? Is it going to cut the taxes on fuel to give immediate relief? No, it's not going to do that. Is the legislation that the government is bringing for us today to reduce the road user charge paid by truckies? No, it's not going to do that. Is it going to give immediate relief to farmers who are paying record prices to run their farms and to deliver groceries to Australian? No, it's not doing that either. Let's be very clear on what this bill does and what this bill doesn't. It is a bill that simply removes the safeguards, all safeguards, on an industrial relations process—which is currently under review, I might add—and that has barely been used by the transport industry. This is urgent legislation!

The priorities of Labor in a crisis are clear for all to see. This is Labor. An industrial relations process that has not been used is urgent, but cutting the fuel excise isn't. Cutting the road user charge is not urgent. Getting the supply to the petrol bowsers is not urgent, but changing an industrial relations law that hasn't yet been used and that is currently under review is urgent. This meagre and this politicised offering for the transport sector is so urgent that it is only one item in a long list of assistance that has been called for, but it's simply not enough. It doesn't cut a tax that pushes up prices, it doesn't shift a single litre of fuel to a bowser that's run dry, it doesn't get fuel to farmers, it doesn't get fuel to manufacturers, it doesn't get fuel to fishers, it doesn't get fuel to manufacturers or to transport, and it doesn't help to keep the price of your groceries down by reducing pressure in the supply chain. It's entirely political, it's entirely pathetic, and it is what all Australians have come to expect from this Labor government.

As meagre as it is, it also speaks to the mindset of Labor, because it has entirely circumvented scrutiny. In bringing this bill on, Labor have trashed parliamentary scrutiny of a very complex industrial relations system, with the likely outcome being unintended consequences—of that there is no doubt. The bill was introduced to the parliament last Thursday. Minutes after the legislation was introduced, the government forced a vote on it in the House of Representatives, before members had even seen the bill. They hadn't even read it and they were forced to vote on it.

Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Disgraceful!

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

It is disgraceful. It is entirely disgraceful. It is taking advantage of an industry that is in crisis and is desperate for assistance. It's a shameful and cynical play by a government that has put politics over planning in the middle of a national emergency. This is their priority. Smirks and sneers don't save jobs and they don't keep companies running. At a time of crisis, the Labor government has nothing to offer Australians but low acts, when it should rise to the occasion.

This bill would amend the Fair Work Act 2009 to allow the minister to determine that a road transport contractual chain order application, which we will refer to as an RTCCO, is an emergency application. This means that a process that would normally take a number of months will be fast-tracked so that an application can be put on the top of the pile; it's pretty much that simple. An RTCCO, as currently available under the act, can set minimum standards to which road transport contractors, road transport employee-like workers and other persons would be entitled, and the bill would allow an expedited timeframe in the Fair Work Commission to consider an application.

This is the second measure that the government has come up with in the fuel crisis that will have immediate effect, and it still doesn't alleviate the pain that is being felt and faced by millions of commuters or solve the pain price faced by transport. It doesn't cut a tax. It won't reduce your petrol prices. It won't deliver a litre of fuel. At best, what it will do is shift costs up and down the supply chain, and someone at some point is going to have to pay. The coalition has called on the government to immediately halve the fuel and diesel excise for three months, with a corresponding reduction in the heavy vehicle road user charge. These measures would provide immediate relief. They would actually make a difference. But the trucking industry says that the excise alone is insufficient to mitigate the scale of current costs.

RTCCOs were provisions that were introduced by the government through the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Bill 2023. The coalition opposed that bill at the time, but the measure has been in effect since February 2024. Under the current scheme, RTCCOs are made by the Fair Work Commission following an application from somebody within the supply chain, or their representatives. The RTCCOs set minimum standards to which road transport contractors, road transport employee-like workers and other persons would be entitled, and include things like rate reviews, cost recovery, fuel levies—a very important one—payment times and determinations. The Fair Work Commission would ordinarily need to provide a six- or 12-month consultation period—a consultation period that was specifically requested by the industry, I might add, during the closing loopholes bill consultation—before a decision is made on what an RTCCO would like look. Since the introduction of this measure, the Fair Work Commission has heard—wait for it—one application for an RTCCO. A decision hasn't even been made yet on that one application, but somehow this is an urgent issue that needs to be dealt with today, without appropriate scrutiny.

The coalition asks the questions: Why is this measure not temporary? If it is in fact an emergency measure, why has the government brought us legislation that will make permanent changes to the Fair Work Act? Why should the emergency power not be limited to the issue of fuel alone? Why is it expanding out to other things in those minimum standard orders, other than just fuel levies? The transport sector is clearly experiencing temporary but acute pressure as a result of the fuel crisis specifically. The sector has called for several measures, not just this, including powers to deal with fuel levies, excise rates and the road user charge. The coalition has announced and responded to those requests. This bill's measures have some support but hardly the level of other more immediate, tangible options that Labor could equally implement today. But this, an industrial relations measure, is the one that they've decided is the most important. This is the one that they've decided is urgent. This is the one that they've decided deserves no scrutiny by government.

Let's be really clear. We should acknowledge the fragility of the sector. The provisions that have been called on today are being called on by companies that are genuinely in distress. ASIC data has shown that more than 2,050 transport, postal and warehousing sector businesses have entered insolvency since May 2022, and it's currently at a rate of two businesses every single day going insolvent. Average insolvencies have been increasing year on year under the Albanese government. It was 16 per month in 2021-22. It was 29 per month in 2022-23. It was 41 per month in 2023-24. It was 61 per month in 2024-25, and it was 64 per month on average from January 2025 to January 26. Wow. This is how many businesses are going insolvent under Labor.

The bill before us today takes a very broad definition for the minister to determine the circumstances under which the powers can be used. The critical component of the definition relates to an event or a circumstance having: 'A significant national negative impact on the road transport industry'. This is entirely inconsistent with how other acts define emergencies for sectors where ministerial powers can be used. The coalition wants to understand and wants to ask the question of whether the ministerial powers should only be used if other determinations defining a national emergency are in place, and we'll be moving amendments to this effect.

It is also somewhat concerning that these powers do not have a sunset provision—a provision to enable an automatic review. In briefings, the government has outlined that, while this is a temporary crisis, having these provisions as a permanent feature of the act will mean that they do not need to be legislated for again at the next crisis. The coalition would ask why temporary measures are not more appropriate. They would allow the government to review the effectiveness of provisions and return to this parliament again at an appropriate time to fully consider their operations. We'll also be moving amendments to this effect, noting that we will not prevent this measure from providing the relief that it intends.

During industry consultations on the closing loopholes legislation, ensuring adequate processes for the transport sector consultation—including with what has become the Road Transport Advisory Group—was a key safeguard that was negotiated by peak trucking organisations. This bill expedites the consultation on RTCCO applications, which represents a lessening of the effectiveness of those safeguards. The coalition would ask why the government has not included a requirement for even minimal consultation when these powers are used. We will also be moving amendments to ensure that this occurs.

Finally, we are very concerned that the measures are not limited to just fuel. It would mean that the minister could use these powers to allow for commercial arrangements such as payment times, rate reviews, terminations and cost recovery mechanisms to be looked at also. That doesn't sound like an emergency to me. That sounds like a commercial contractual arrangement between two consenting entities, but we know that the government would love to get its hands on that. The minister has failed to identify why this is necessary in a fuel crisis. We'll be seeking to make amendments to restrict the use of these powers to matters related to fuel alone. If this is a response to a fuel crisis, let's not allow the minister to expand their remit to embrace and encompass other issues that would be convenient to a Labor government.

This bill has been introduced and brought on for debate outside the normal course despite there being plenty of time available for proper parliamentary and committee processes. There is no obvious reason why the parliament should be asked to truncate scrutiny on a permanent amendment to the Fair Work Act when ordinary mechanisms remain available and passage is still available this week. If the government believes their case is strong, they should be prepared to test that case through the usual processes and not shortcut it. This is particularly important where the bill expands ministerial powers and accelerates the Fair Work Commission processes.

Rushed debate reduces transparency. The parliament should not be asked to legislate first and ask questions later. The government says this responds to an acute fuel crisis, but there is still time available to allow those processes to occur. The government simply cannot claim both that it is a targeted response to a temporary situation and that the parliament has no time to examine the permanent change properly. It's not a short and temporary fix; this bill would make a permanent change to the Fair Work Act. If the stated problem is temporary, the parliament should ask for a temporary position. A sunset clause and an automatic review is not an unreasonable request. Permanent powers introduced and enforced in haste are rarely good law. The crossbench, we would ask, should not kid themselves. Without the processes we are paid to undertake by the taxpayer, we know there will be likely unintended consequences.

The opposition's amendments go some way to allowing this bill to pass while ensuring we provide ourselves with opportunities to review those measures later. We are conscious of the fact that there is broad support for some of the actions in this bill, and we will make sure this bill passes to ensure that those in the trucking industry do not suffer under positions of this government. However, there is more that needs to be done, more that can be done and more that should be done. I now move our second reading amendment that has just been circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add "and, following passage of the bill, the following matter be referred to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 29 May 2026:

The operation, effectiveness and implications of the amendments made by the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Act 2026".

Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are looking at global conflict and the rising price of fuel, and are rightly asking what it means at home. Our government is taking action to keep essential services running and get fuel to where it's needed most. This is just one of the things our government is doing.

This bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026, addresses the impact of fuel price increases on truckies and our road transport industry, because when fuel prices spike those costs hit immediately. But the system that deals with those costs doesn't move at the same pace, so, with that gap, the pressure lands on truck drivers and operators, and it builds very quickly. Fuel is one of the largest operating costs in this sector—if not the largest—and it moves quickly, and we see that flowing into their day-to-day operations.

Fuel prices have increased due to the conflict we are seeing in the Middle East, and everyone in this country is feeling it; we know that. But it is very much felt by those whose jobs and livelihoods depend on fuel every single day—the workers who are moving goods across the country, keeping our shelves stocked and making sure essential supplies reach the communities who need it. Truck drivers and transport operators wear these costs every single day. That industry operates very much through contract chains, with costs that move through those chains—and the ability to manage those costs is not evenly shared. Those at the end have limited capacity to adjust when costs surge, which impacts business viability, affects sustainability and absolutely affects the livelihoods of truckies and their families. We want to make sure that this sector can continue operating while it's under pressure. The current system provides a process to set minimum standards across these chains which includes consultation and timeframes that can extend for many months, which means there's a gap between when the cost increases and when the system can respond. Ultimately, it's a timing issue.

This bill will improve sustainability, fairness and resilience while we see these global fuel challenges. It's about making sure that hardworking truckies and small transport businesses are not pushed to the brink. It amends the Fair Work Act to enable the commission to respond more quickly to contractual chain order applications in time-sensitive circumstances. It allows the minister to determine that an application be determined quickly when it is in the public interest. It essentially allows the system that currently exists to deal with these challenges very quickly when it is necessary and in the public interest. This is an important change that is reflective of the circumstances we find ourselves in. Road transport is essential to keeping goods moving across our country, and it's important that we keep the system working under global pressures. This is about making sure our transport businesses can continue to operate to keep goods moving across the country. We know that, when road transport is disrupted, the impact is felt well beyond the industry itself.

This bill strengthens the system's ability to respond when conditions change. That is the purpose of what we're doing today. This is, of course, part of a broad suite of work our government is undertaking to keep fuel flowing where it is needed; we're introducing new laws to help fuel suppliers bring fuel into Australia from overseas while also keeping more Australian-made fuel here at home, and we're working with the states to get fuel where it is needed most. We are committed to doing this work that is needed to give Australians confidence that, in the midst of this global crisis, they can get the fuel they need, and that's ultimately what this bill is about today—giving the trucking industry the confidence it needs to keep goods moving. I am very pleased to support this bill today.

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

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. In a fuel crisis, this bill deals with an important issue. It is incredibly important that we deal with it as we see fuel prices going through the roof. Right now, across Australia, working people are feeling the sharp edge of rising fuel prices. This bill amends the Fair Work Act to create a fast-track emergency mechanism for regulating the pay and conditions of the road transport industry. Simply put, this bill gives the minister and the Fair Work Commission rapid response powers to impose temporary minimum standards, like fuel cost recovery, across the road transport industry in an emergency. The goal is to ensure that transport workers and contractors can recover sudden cost increases, like fuel, rather than absorbing them. It follows on from changes made to the closing-loopholes reforms to ensure that the Fair Work Commission has the power to deal with pressures on workers and businesses in the road transport sector. The Greens supported those measures.

But we need to talk about why this bill is before us today. We're debating this bill in the shadow of, and as a direct result of, Trump and Netanyahu's illegal war and attack in Iran, which have unleashed more chaos across the Middle East and are clearly threatening global peace. Just like other US wars, this war was not to bring about safety or freedom to the brave Iranian people resisting the regime that they face every day. History is clear: you cannot bomb your way to peace. This rapidly-escalating conflict has already sent shockwaves through global energy markets, and it's pushing our fuel costs through the roof here in Australia. The closure of key shipping routes, like the Strait of Hormuz, has disrupted a significant share of global oil supply, pushing our fuel prices higher and higher, and ordinary people are paying the price, as ever, for the costs of war through casualties but also through inflation and the fuel and other cost-of-living increases that Australians are feeling the harsh effects of every day. Workers pay an especially high price—the cost of price-gouged fuel, groceries, interest rates, mortgages and rents.

We know rising fuel prices feed directly into inflation, and we have seen warnings that food prices will rise, construction costs will increase due to fuel surcharges and essential services will become more expensive. We know farmers around our nation are suffering, and that will feed through into food prices. This is how energy shocks spread through the economies and around the world, yet at the same time wages are not keeping up. Workers are being squeezed from both sides—from higher costs, from interest rates going up and from stagnant incomes—and it's getting worse and worse as the war drags on. Treasury modelling predicts that inflation could go beyond five per cent as a direct result, and Treasurer Chalmers has now said that is a conservative estimate. We saw in COVID that workers pay a price very early, and it's a high price. They lose hours, they lose jobs, they lose incomes.

This illegal war, backed by Labor—Australia was the first country in the world to leap to backing Trump and Netanyahu in this illegal war—is costing workers, families and people relying on government benefits a very great deal. It's a cost in terms of fear and concern for so many Australians who now live in fear for the lives and safety of their friends and family and the citizens—women, men and children—living in the Middle East. It's a huge economic cost to workers and their households. This is a conflict that Australians want nothing to do with, but they are paying the price for it. The latest Guardian Essential poll found that only one in four Australians approve of the US-Israel war on Iran. Only a third supported this government's actions in sending a military plane and troops to the region.

Despite the lack of public support for this government's involvement in the war, the consequences have been immediate and severe. Here in Australia, we've seen diesel prices jump from around $1.66 a litre to over $3 in a matter of weeks, and they're only going one way. They're going to continue to go up. This is a war where, as Germany's defence minister said recently:

… there was no consultation, there is no strategy, there is no clear objective and the worst thing from my perspective is that there is no exit strategy.

He is spot on. Right now, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence can unilaterally take Australia to war with no parliamentary oversight before the decision is made. That's why my colleague, Senator Shoebridge, reintroduced a bill to this place last week that would require the houses of parliament to vote before the government can send Australians to wars overseas.

We know that 90 per cent of Australians support this reform, and most are astounded that the parliament does not already have that power. Australians should decide when they go to war, not Washington, not a handful of people in the war parties and not on the whim of the unpredictable maniac, Donald Trump. We are living through the chaos of a war that's supported by a handful of powerful people without public consent, and this war is directly making the lives of Australian workers harder. The cost is especially high for those who work in the transport industry. The bottom of the road transport supply chain are transport workers and self-employed truck drivers whose livelihoods and the livelihoods of their kids and their communities' families are already being hit so hard by those sharp increases in fuel prices.

People like Frank Black, a member of the Transport Workers' Union, who's been a long-distance owner-driver for more than 30 years, who I met recently, have had their diesel cost gone up directly from $1,600 to fill his tank to $2,500 last week. No doubt, it's probably even more today. Frank Black's earnings have been wiped out. He cannot run his business. That pain should be shared along the road transportation and product distribution and retail chain. This bill shortens the delay in changed terms and pay conditions of transport workers. It offers them some protection. In an emergency like the one we're in, we have to support those workers and their families so that, on this one issue, we can make sure that the price and the pain of this emergency does not fall unfairly on those at the end of the supply chain and on their families. I acknowledge the work of the Transport Workers' Union in calling on the government to pursue this change. The TWU national secretary, Michael Kaine, has said that, without putting in place these emergency powers, we'll see more transport workers will die on our roads, more businesses will go under and supply chains will continue to be at breaking point, as they are today.

This bill is called the fairer fuel bill because it aims to make the cost of fuel fairer for workers in the road transport industry during this time of crisis. But what does this bill do for all those workers whose hours of work and jobs are being affected by this emergency—all those workers in other parts of industry sectors. It does nothing for them. Who is helping all those workers in the care economy, child care, aged care and disability services who are using their cars and paying for the fuel to look after the people they feel so responsible for and are paid to take care for? Who is helping those in the manufacturing industry, our hospitals, schools, and retail and hospitality sectors who are also being affected by really significant changes in their fuel costs. These workers are impacted by the fuel crisis. Their bills are through the roof too. I've heard directly from Australians that many of them are spending $50 a day in cities like Sydney just to get to and from work—for fuel and for tolls. The costs of this fuel crisis are painfully felt by them in their communities. The aged-care sector is having difficulty getting staff to come in, because they can't afford the fuel costs.

Instead, we get this bill, which, while important, does nothing for those sources of pain, for those workers in those other industries who are feeling that deep pain because of the illegal Trump-Netanyahu war that Labor has readily signed us up to without an exit strategy. This bill does nothing for inflation, for interest rate rises, for higher mortgages, for higher rents, for higher grocery costs—and the list goes on. It does nothing for those five million Australians who live on income support payments and who are facing all of these increases in expenses, including their fuel, without any increase in their payments. Their households are reeling.

We need to end this illegal war and we need to end Australia's support for it. We need to take the wide range of measures that we know Australian communities and workers need, including a stronger right to work from home. Working from home will make a real difference in this crisis. People are talking about it. They want to be able to do it and they need to have a stronger basis for their negotiations with their employers to get it in so many sectors where they're still struggling to find that right to work from home.

So, while the Greens support this bill, the government must do more to provide immediate relief to Australians—a broader range of Australians. Labor must make public transport free for the duration of this fuel crisis. The Greens have called for Labor to coordinate free public transport with the states and territories at today's National Cabinet meeting, and momentum is certainly there. This commonsense Greens call is backed by people being smashed at the petrol pump. It's backed by train, tram and bus drivers and now by the ACT and Tasmanian governments as well. Free public transport would be an immediate cost-of-living relief for people in our cities and in our suburbs and would take the pressure off fuel suppliers so farmers and people living in our regions can fill up and regional servos don't run dry.

It's also worth mentioning who's benefiting while workers and those living on benefits suffer. Large oil and gas companies are raking in wartime profits, and they are long overdue to pay their fair share of tax. Workers should not be paying more than a massive gas corporation selling our key resources to the world with so little tax and more than a majority of that gas without any real tax. We know that the US's illegal war on Iran is making Australian gas corporations even richer. The government needs to act now to stop this war profiteering and ensure that Australians get our fair share of gas wealth. That's why the Greens are fighting for a new, minimum 25 per cent export tax on gas revenue. It is time to act. There is support in our community for this. We must tax these gas companies, especially as they profiteer from these war opportunities. The government has the numbers and the Greens in the Senate. We will work to pass good reforms like that, which would make a huge difference in this crisis and in the longer term.

Australians have been crystal clear: they want to tax gas exports and they want to tax them now. The Greens support this bill because it provides urgently needed relief for those at the bottom of the fuel supply chain. It recognises that fuel price shocks cannot simply be absorbed by those who live and work at the bottom of that supply chain, and it takes steps to move towards more fairness in the way costs are distributed. But let's not pretend this is the end of the story. This is a short-term fix to a long-term set of problems. Our economic stability is deeply entangled with global conflicts over fossil fuels, and this is a position of vulnerability. This crisis underscores the importance of pursuing an independent, peaceful foreign policy—one that prioritises de-escalation, diplomacy and stability. The crisis also shows us how important it is that we have long-term plans for sovereign control of key items, like our fuel supply, like our fertiliser supply.

The increased costs for transport workers—for all workers—are because of this war. Let's not forget it. We must stop supporting it.

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

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. We're now entering the fifth week of the fuel supply crisis the government denied existed and sought to ignore. First, the government told us there was no fuel supply shortage. Apparently, Australia had the best fuel stocks in 15 years. Transport minister Catherine King responded to questions about shortages by suggesting it was actually flooding in Queensland that was causing bowsers to run dry across the country. Then resources minister Madeleine King claimed fuel prices were actually holding steady in the first weeks of this crisis.

Well, it shows this government can't get out of its cushy ministerial wing to the suburbs and the regions of this country and realise, at that point, prices had already jumped 40 cents per litre. Over the past week, the road transport industry has been crying out for immediate assistance to help them get through the current crisis. There are transport businesses parking their trucks and refusing jobs because they cannot afford to pay the skyrocketing diesel prices, which over the weekend were $3.21 and 0.9c in capital cities. That is up from $1.65 just a few weeks ago.

Let's be very clear: this legislation does not provide any immediate relief for the heavy vehicle sector. For the transport businesses listening to this debate and for their representative association, who have asked the parliament to pass this legislation, the bill does not provide you the immediate support you seek. In a briefing provided by the office of the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, we were told that it would take weeks, plural—not days—and that is after an application had been submitted to the Fair Work Commission that would make a road transport contractual chain order. That is weeks before the estimated 50 per cent of truckies who do not have fuel levies in their current contracts can get relief. That is if they can survive that long without laying off workers and without distorting and disrupting supply chains.

By contrast, the opposition announced this week some immediate assistance for our transport industry through an immediate, temporary cut to the fuel excise and a corresponding cut to the road user charge that is paid by our heavy vehicle sector. That is real relief at the bowser with every single litre of petrol for Australian families and, importantly, for our transport sector. The government could announce this assistance today. They don't need legislation to make those changes; they're the government. They could sign a change of regulation, and it would happen like that. You've got to ask why they won't do what the industry has asked and give that immediate relief, rather than have us debating here in this chamber about changes to contractual arrangements that could take weeks for actual impact to be felt.

The industry is also looking for immediate support and has made the following requests to government over the last few weeks, none of which have been picked up by a government that's more interested in calling national cabinet meetings to sit around big tables with premiers to talk about the problem than to actually take responsibility for it. I've had the great privilege of being a minister. It is hard. It is a hard job. And every time it gets hard for this government and these ministers, they look for someone else to blame instead of doing what they swore to do when they took on these ministerial responsibilities under the Crown to act in the national interest.

The industry wants a disaster declared and $25,000 emergency small-business grants to become available to these trucking businesses. They want the 32.4 cent per litre price on diesel abolished. They want that done temporarily, in a targeted way, while this crisis is occurring. That, again, is relief that the government could give today and could have given last week, the week before or the week before that. What we've seen is trucking businesses, who were becoming insolvent at the rate of two businesses a day before the Middle East crisis, being slugged with fuel bills in excess of tens—and, in some cases, hundreds—of thousands of dollars and contractual arrangements that don't assist.

What the industry is also asking for is something that we instigated during COVID, and that is a six-month moratorium on banks or creditors imposing lending repayments. That gives these companies the cash flow relief that they need right now to keep their drivers employed, their trucks on the road and goods turning up across all of our retail sector—picking up primary products, whether it be bananas in northern Queensland, which are currently being left to just rot because no-one can afford the fuel bill, or B-doubles of cattle heading to the abattoir. Indeed, our grain growers, who are trying to get seed in the ground for this harvest, can't afford their diesel bills. That's what's actually happening.

The National Road Transport Association, which represents transport and logistics businesses, has said this legislation is 'too little, too late', with 'dozens of businesses already being forced to close because of high costs and lack of cash flow'. Again I say passing this legislation today will have no material impact on these businesses at all. NatRoad is an organisation that cautiously supports the passage of the amendment, but they are clear that this does not respond to the urgent need being experienced by our transport sector.

Before the start of the fuel crisis, transport companies were going insolvent at a rate of two businesses every day. Following the passage of Labor's closing-the-loophole legislation, insolvencies in the sector have escalated—something the government doesn't want to admit or recognise—and this does nothing to help that. The transport sector insolvencies increased by 42.7 per cent in 2023-24, the year those industrial relations changes were made, and that was followed by a further 48.3 per cent increase in 2024-25. So, if you like the big end of town in the transport sector, you haven't got a problem here. You have not got a problem here, Mr Kaine, have you? But, if you are interested in owner-operators, small businesses, mum-and-dad businesses—particularly out in the regions and the suburbs—being able to employ locals and meet locals' needs, this is not the way to go. And insolvencies have further increased by 21 per cent this financial year to date. In total, to the end of January 2026, 449 transport sector businesses went insolvent, and that isn't good enough. Everyone's fine, because the big end of town picks up the slack. But, in the National Party and on the opposition benches, we back small business—we back small to medium enterprises—as a way of community standing up and solving their own issues.

Because the government denied and refused to acknowledge the fuel supply crisis facing many trucking businesses and farmers, the opposition last week established a self-reporting website: nofuelhere.com.au. The website enables Australians to report petrol stations where there are fuel shortages or where informal rationing is going on, and we are using that data to help the government help our country. Today I was able to write to the fuel tsar and let her know where the shortages were in my home state of Victoria. What is clear from this government is that they're busy telling us we've got more supply than ever before, and yet we've got 600 servos that you can't get a drop from—let alone the price problem.

One job—here's one job, Prime Minister. Please take it out of Chris Bowen's hands; he's absolutely incompetent. Here's one job, PM: ensure that fuel is affordable by cutting the fuel excise and the road user charge, and also ensure that these abundant supplies you are telling the Australian community exist onshore—we'll take you at your word—get to where the shortages are. It's no good for the four big fuel companies to be hoarding and hedging, clipping the ticket on the way through, because, right now, people are going broke, workers are being laid off, and our communities are suffering. The level of anxiety out there not just in the business sector but across communities is significant.

The coalition will be moving amendments to this bill. This bill is tarted up to say it's an emergency measure for a crisis, yet the measures of this bill will extend far beyond the crisis. In fact, it will embed these measures and the ability to reach into contractual arrangements beyond it just being an issue of whether you're one of the 50 per cent of the trucking industry who aren't able to have their contract reflect increased fuel prices, so we will be moving a sunset clause. I really encourage the government to put a timeframe limitation on this particular measure. This measure hasn't gone through the usual process of a Senate inquiry, where we're able to go out and examine it in detail. We are taking the government at its word that it wants to assist trucking companies who can't have those increased fuel prices that aren't reflected in their current contractual arrangements ameliorated, but this shouldn't be a measure that is beyond the current crisis, so we will be moving a 12-month sunset clause.

We'll also be seeking an independent review after this has operated for six months, because this hasn't been through the usual process of parliament, where we go out to communities, experts and legal eagles to understand the flow-on impacts of this. We're going to move amendments to require the Fair Work Commission to consult on proposed orders. One of the critical concessions that the transport industry negotiated during the closing loopholes legislation debate was a lengthy and encompassing consultation process. We know that Labor doesn't like consultation, because they don't like to hear that they might have a bit wrong. They shut this chamber down from debating serious, nation-changing legislation at a whim—with their partners, the Greens—instead of just allowing this chamber to do what it does.

You've got the numbers; don't be afraid of the debate. You're going to win, but the Australian public has sent us all here to put our views on the table in this democracy, which all deserve to be heard. Consultation going forward will be one of the amendments that we seek, because this legislation seeks to truncate that safeguard. We want to make sure that the Fair Work Commission must consult on any emergency application. We want to restrict the emergency orders solely to the issue of fuel charges, because this was the original request of the Australian Trucking Association. However, no limitation on this power exists in the legislation. You've got to ask: why? Why do we have a much broader application than what the industry wants?

The government is seeking to expand the range of matters that could be determined by the Fair Work Commission under the emergency powers, and I don't believe that's appropriate. We want to move an amendment that ensures the minister can only make a determination if a declaration of the national emergency has been made under the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984. That's important. We're all being inundated, around this chamber, with the real-life impact of the current issues. I've been contacted by a bulk haulage transporter from Inverleigh, west of Geelong, who wrote to me over the weekend, talking about the reality of parking trucks because they can no longer afford to keep them on the road. It's core business—Roe Transport in Barnawartha also. Thank you. We've all been inundated in other debates. I'll be able to outline that.

Transport is an essential service. Every Australian depends on it for food, water, housing, energy and medical supplies. Without a transport industry, those sectors fail. Everything we know fails. We won't be frustrating this legislation, but we will be moving sensible amendments to ensure that this legislation works for industry in the long term.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we go again—ideology over substance. We've had, to this chamber and with this bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill, representation from owner-drivers, employee-drivers, contracting companies, many fleet operators, large transport companies—a great variety of people right across the board—and all we can hear is rubbish from Senator McKenzie, saying about consultation, 'Is this an urgent requirement to be put forward by the government?' Well, if you turned around as the shadow minister of I don't know what, because you're actually talking to transport companies, you'd be finding out about how urgent this is.

What do they come in here with? An amendment to say that we should wait until 29 May before we start discussing this further. Last week they were turning around saying how important it is that we act urgently on fuel, yet they're putting amendments up about delay, delay, delay and red tape after red tape after red tape. Their ridiculous approach to the whole substance of what they've been putting forward is making sure that we delay the whole process of making sure mum-and-dad truck operators, those in the supply chain, are actually getting the benefits of having these sorts of issues in front of the Fair Work Commission. What don't like is that, during the closing the loopholes bills, there was a proposition that we should have supply chain accountability for those big retailers, who they're always on the side with, and those big miners that are screwing down people that are in the supply chain, who they're always on the side with. Those in powerful positions in the economy, under the closing loopholes bill, are held to account about transport costs.

What this bill simply does, but importantly does and critically does, is make a variation to say that the Fair Work Commission doesn't have to wait six months at least to make a decision. They have to consider the arguments. They have to consider the evidence. They have to consider the positions put forward by all the parties right across the economy. But they don't have to wait an arbitrary six months.

Now, to the credit of a number of companies—it might be funny for me to come in here and say some good things about Woolies and Coles because I spent about 30 years bashing them up. On this one issue, they've turned around, as a result of the closing the loopholes bill that we put through—that One Nation voted against, that the Liberals and Nationals voted against and that is the result of a discussions that have taken place so far on the bill that has already been passed on closing the loopholes on supply chains—and said that they'll go to fortnightly payments. They said they'll go to new payment terms to make sure truckers aren't sent bankrupt. The consequence for all of us in the community if that happens is that we won't have supplies of fuel actually making it to the petrol station. We won't have food going to remote communities, to regional communities or to your local shop in our capital cities.

This bill is to make sure the urgency that's required of the fuel challenges that we have now because of the Middle East crisis is dealt with in a faster, more efficient way. But they're just against it because of ideology. They don't like the fact that some of the biggest, most powerful companies in this country, along with owner-drivers and employees and transport companies, can all come together and work out a solution and that, if they can't get a solution, then the arbitrator by hearing the evidence can make a decision to make sure that nobody's left behind. Those good companies—and there's a number of them out there—that are doing the right thing and that are making sure their transport operators don't go bankrupt are competing with the mongrels they're protecting. If they don't pass this legislation and if they don't pass this bill, then they are turning around and going to the most base and crass operators that are turning around and profiteering from the challenges that we have because of the Middle East crisis. They're going to stand with them rather than stand with those businesses, those owner-drivers and those employees who are doing the right thing.

I heard the comments from Senator McKenzie before: 'Heaven forbid, the unions—oh, my God, the unions are involved with this as well. Isn't it horrific?' Well, I'm proud to say—yes, I'm union member; yes, I was the national secretary of the Transport Workers' Union. It happens to be the largest small-business organisation in this country, with tens of thousands of owner-drivers in every transport chain you could possibly think of—gig workers, taxi drivers, long-distance truck drivers, waste workers and car carriers, and the list goes on. The TWU still are the largest organisation in this country representing small businesses.

But it's not just they who have come to the table and said how important this bill is. It's people like Peter Anderson, who's the secretary of the peak transport employee body, the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation. On 23 March of 2026, he said this:

There are plenty of good transport clients out there doing what they can to get everyone through these fuel price spikes. But they're being undermined by the many others who are forcing transport businesses to fully absorb skyrocketing fuel costs themselves. They can't afford that, and that poses an imminent threat to our supply chains. We need to see these emergency powers put in place for the immediate viability of our transport industry.

The Australian Trucking Association CEO Mathew Munro—we've had a few arguments over the years, too—on 26 March 2026, this year, said that the Senate must pass the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill to save trucking businesses struggling to cope with crippling fuel bills and dwindling funds. The National Road Freighters Association on 23 March, a long time truck driver, Glyn Castanelli, spoke. Glyn and I have had a few arguments too, but we all agree on something. This is what Glyn says:

This is a positive step forward to protecting the viability of Australia's transport operators and maintaining the continuity of essential freight across the country.

Senator McKenzie, maybe you should listened to the transport industry. Maybe you should stop for a minute, read what they've said, read what they put in writing and listen to what they were saying to you. If you don't listen, and if the Liberal Party doesn't listen, then others will. We're going to make sure we got to transport industry's back.

Senator Hume called for urgency now. Maybe they should follow through and actually vote for what hardworking Australians are calling for instead of playing games, because this is a simple ideological attack—because they were against closing loopholes, all those years ago, when it was passed in this place. This is an amendment to make it more efficient, more effective and more successful for every hardworking Australian. This doesn't cover just people who are members of unions or those associations; it covers everybody. Where did Senator McKenzie's ridiculous 50 per cent thing come from? It's like everything else—truth plucked out of thin air, and you know where it should be put, because it doesn't actually exist. You're just coming in here and saying a whole pile of absolute rubbish rather than turning around and sticking to the facts.

If Senator Hume, who's also the shadow minister for industrial relations says there won't be proper consultation, Senator Hume might want to turn around and have a look at what it actually says in the Industrial Relations Act. I'm sure she's aware of it. The Industrial Relations Act requires proper consultation. It requires proper consideration. It's a necessity of the act. Judges sit there—the same judges as are in the other essential courts in this country—and consider those arguments. But, most essentially, it brings parties together on a common cause, with common views, for a common industry. That's what's happening in this parliament. It's a common cause, common views and a common sense of history and importance in passing this legislation.

We've seen the impact of the Middle East conflict. It's having a horrific effect on so many people across the world and in this country. We know that we have to take steps, and this is one of those important steps that needs to be taken to make sure that we have a trucking industry viable and still operating, to make sure we get the goods into our shops. This means that the commission can require retailers, mining companies and manufacturers—those at the top of the supply chain—to offer fair contract terms, which they want to minimise in their amendment. They don't want fair contract terms. They don't like the whole idea of having this act in the first place, because they voted against it. They don't want to have fair contract terms because that's actually what the industry is asking for. I might add that the industry is asking for this not only for those big clients and big retailers at the top of the supply chain; they're saying that when they subcontract they'll also be held to account for that. The responsibility goes right through. Not only are they saying, 'You should do it for these people'; they are saying, 'You should be doing it for all of us.' We're in this together. Not them; they're not in it with everybody else. They're in it for the ones at the top of the supply chain, not the ones doing the right thing right now. They are the ones who continue to do the wrong thing and put the transport industry in such dire risk. Tens upon tens of thousands of owner-drivers—mum-and-dad businesses—are making sure that we turn around and get the right thing done here.

This whole review system on 29 May and the proposition from the opposition that this is all some sort of stunt—well, say that to truck drivers that are doing it tough out there at the moment. Say it to the ones that can't get proper fuel cost recovery. Say that about the terms of payments on that fuel in a situation where it's so ridiculous it's putting pressure on businesses and, ultimately, will close them down.

We've just heard about price gouging. We know there should be further questions and investigations. That's why the government has got the ACCC doing an investigation into price gouging. But those same fuel companies at the top of the supply chain can apply pressure and change at a whim the terms on how payments are made for fuel under these difficult circumstances. They want to close all that down. Then they want to have a limit on it. They're saying: 'If we can't bash them that way, knock them out that way and delay it this way, then we'll have a limit.' They'll say, 'Let's make it six months,' then, 'Why not make it nine months or 12 months?' Then they could say, 'Let's think about it and make it two years.' Any sort of proposition is purely because they want to make sure they can frustrate this whole aspect.

If there's an emergency, there's an emergency. The minister has the capacity to turn around and connect that through to the Fair Work Commission. The independent body then makes a decision about the emergency and the status of that emergency and how it deals with it after hearing all the evidence from all the parties. I'm saying to everybody in this chamber: get your ideological blinkers off. Turn around and tell the trucking industry—owner-drivers, employees, small fleets, mum-and-dad operations and truck drivers—that their jobs are going to be more secure because there will be the chance for the commission to deal with the issues that have been proposed here about some ways of stopping the impasse. What's been suggested here are things that the Fair Work Commission does in an orderly, transparent, collective way, where people are able to see what the results are and how the results are arrived at.

To those opposite: I guarantee you that there will be lots of companies throughout that supply chain that will go to the commission and have a common view and common task. They've already had that. It's the ones you're protecting, that you're slowing up, by having this bill not go through, by putting all this red tape in the way. If you want to put all this red tape in the way, it is all about frustrating an outcome for truck drivers and it means fewer trucks on our roads, more pressure on small mum-and-dad businesses and fewer drivers out there to deliver our fuel, our feed and our retail supplies—and our local shops are getting it in the neck as well.

To those opposite: I applaud that you support this bill wholeheartedly, not just these ridiculous amendments that you're suggesting should be put through. Reconsider the ridiculous amendments you're putting forward and withdraw them.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026 is a drop in the tank when it comes to managing the fuel crisis. The bill relates to road transport contract chain orders which used to be called delivery contracts. It allows those contracts between businesses and their trucking companies to be renegotiated as a result of this fuel crisis. Currently, that process takes 12 months or more. This bill may—'may', not 'will'—reduce the lead time on a contract renegotiation to a few weeks.

The road freight industry is critical to the functioning of the economy. Everything in our supermarkets, hardware stores and shopping centres is trucked in. If trucks stop moving because the government failed to secure a supply of fuel, affordable diesel, then people starve; chemists, doctors, dentists and hospitals run out of supplies; casual employees and apprentices are put off work; and loans, rents and mortgages go into arrears. And it's all downhill from there. It's that simple.

This bill amends legislation that Labor introduced in 2024 which created these road transport contract chain orders without any emergency provisions or the ability of the government to step in when the public interest is not being protected. This bill corrects the Albanese government's lack of foresight and forethought. This government needs to slow down its conga line of poorly written bills—we've had so many—take the time to consult and stop using the committee system as a rubber stamp. Had it done that, these provisions would most likely have already been included. The problem with this bill is that it doesn't actually relate to the current fuel crisis, yet it gives the minister powers to interfere in any RTCCO—road transport contractual chain order—it wishes for the rest of time. Powers are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and there's no requirement to make an order introducing an emergency RTCCO through a legislative instrument. Power without accountability is always a very bad idea. Emergency powers exist for emergencies, not to tip the scale in favour of your union mates.

One Nation will support this legislation. Given we have not had the time to prepare amendments to introduce checks and balances, One Nation will amend the bill when we take government. Our changes will require a declaration of emergency to be a legislative instrument setting out the reasons for the order and include a sunset clause, a trigger, so that, unlike what Labor is trying to do, measures do not extend past the end of the crisis.

One Nation points out that, while the trucking industry deserves the help this bill may provide, so does the rest of Australia. Due to a doubling of fuel costs, farmers are struggling to fund their harvests. Farms' fuel bills must be paid in 14 days, while farmers are not paid for their harvests for an average of two months. With fuel costs rising from, as in one case I was told about, $15,000 per week to $30,000 a week, there are massive extra amounts for family farms to bankroll themselves—and they can't. Around Australia today, farmers are unable to plant their winter crops. The spring harvests will be down, and fuel prices will go up. The Labor government is hollowing out the bush again. It's driving people into the cities, and it's running the fuel crisis to push that objective.

If the government had the best interests of Australia at heart, it would have already invoked the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984. The act enables the Commonwealth government to prepare for and respond to severe shortages of crude oil and refined liquid fuels such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel. It supports Australia's obligations under the International Energy Agency agreement and emphasises cooperative responses with industries, states and territories. It provides strong ministerial powers as a last resort if market mechanisms are insufficient. The act requires the minister to be satisfied that there is or is likely to be a serious shortage of liquid fuels with national implications that cannot be adequately addressed without using this bill's special powers. Powers include directing industry-held stocks of crude oil and liquid fuel, such as requiring companies to maintain, purchase or release specified reserves at certain locations and, secondly, regulating fuel sales and distribution across Australia, including bulk-supply restrictions and retail rationing. This legislation is there, and it should have been invoked weeks ago. This is day 32 of the Iran conflict—32 days for the Prime Minister and his ministers to stop the selfies and cringy TikTok videos and address the real crisis; 32 days of horror for the economy, the devastation of which will ensure the ALP do not form government again.

Let me explain what's going on here. These powers require the minister to do certain things. One of those things would be to force foreign multinational oil companies to direct the fuel they're currently hoarding and supply some into the spot market. This is the market which supplies smaller outlets, especially in rural and regional areas. These are the outlets that suppliers are currently charging way over the odds for their petrol, causing price spikes. Then, once they've driven price spikes in the regions, the city outlets that those same multinational fuel companies own themselves put up prices to match prices imposed on the bush. The outcome is price gouging. It's calculated, and it's deliberate. The government rammed through legislation last week to increase the fines for doing exactly that, but it will take years before the ACCC's legal action against multinational fuel companies gets through the courts. They'll get a rap on the knuckles and agree to a small fine, banking windfall profits and most likely doing it all again. The Albanese Labor government is once again proving it's the best friend of foreign multinationals and no friend of everyday Australians.

The Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026 will result in transport charges rising—and that's the point of the bill. Before the crisis, getting a tonne of produce to market cost $100. With the fuel shock, it's now $175. This legislation will drive that price even higher. This isn't the government helping the trucking industry; it's the government making the rest of the economy pay more to help the trucking industry. Food will be dearer. Clothing will be dearer. Consumers will pay. The answer is to reduce the price of fuel, not force up the price of freight.

Last Friday, the National Road Transport Association, NatRoad, published comments critical of the legislation, pointing out:

… most small to medium operators simply could not survive until Fair Work Changes flowed through.

Here's another quote:

… recent announcements, including emergency Fair Work Commission powers and moves toward better fuel monitoring failed to address the immediate needs of industry.

…   …   …

NatRoad is calling on the Federal Government to urgently implement three … measures to keep trucks on the road and prevent further economic disruption:

The national road user charge is a tax of 32.5c per litre of diesel. Operators claim back the fuel levy of 52c per litre and then pay the road user charge. One Nation calls on the government to suspend the road user charge for heavy vehicles for as long as this crisis continues. Taking out the fuel duty and the GST will make a large difference to trucking industry cash flows and their ability to get through this crisis—and reduce grocery bills. Invoking the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984 to stop multinational fuel companies profiteering will reduce fuel prices and reduce the need for freight charges to rise.

The truth is that every sector in the economy is in need of assistance. The knock-on from extreme fuel prices extends right through the economy. Trucking has the potential to impact everyday Australians—and every Australian—and more quickly than other sectors, so it deserves first attention. We see no problem in that. My objection is that the Labor government is picking winners, helping some but not others based on its radical communist ideology. Labor says to small business, 'No assistance for you'; to manufacturing, 'No assistance for you'; to farmers, 'Definitely no assistance for you lot'; to rail transport and ports, 'No assistance for you'; to Defence, 'No fuel for you.'

The Albanese Marles government refused the request from President Trump to participate in international efforts to make safe the Strait of Hormuz so Australian bound fuel tankers can get through to Singapore or South Korea to refine our petrol for us. This raises the question: Australia doesn't have a defence strategic liquid fuel reserve, so just how much fuel do our armed forces actually have? And why did the Navy ponce around in Exercise Kakadu Fleet Review last week? This wasn't a training exercise; this was to show off. From where did those boats come, to where are they returning, and how much fuel was wasted for a photo op in the middle of a fuel crisis? Fair dinkum! The Navy has now caught the selfie virus. Heaven help us.

The Albanese government snubbed the President of the United States, our greatest ally, while grovelling on hands and knees to him for fuel. 'Please, sir,' the Prime Minister pleads, 'can we please have some of your oil reserve, as we sold ours off for a quick buck?' The Albanese Labor government is a dishonest national disgrace. How did you not see this coming? One Nation have been banging on about the need for restoring oil production and increasing our domestic reserve since 2020—and about fuel security since 2016.

Now, I know social media is circulating a Liberal Party meme claiming that One Nation voted against giving subsidies to the Kwinana and Altona refineries in 2020 to keep them in production. Let me address that first, with a history of closures. Port Stanvac closed under the Howard Liberal government in 2003. Clyde closed under the Gillard Labor government in 2012. Kurnell closed under the Liberals and Nationals in 2014. Bulwer Island closed under the Liberals and Nationals in 2015. Kwinana closed under the Liberal and Nationals in 2021. Altona closed under the Liberals and Nationals in 2021.

Now, the meme circulated says that One Nation voted against the fuel security package in 2021, which we did. What the meme does not tell you the bill we opposed was a stunt. BP and Exxon had already announced the closure before the bill was ever written. The Liberal-National government designed the bill to pretend to the public in the 2022 election that the Liberals cared about fuel refining—all to look good, not do good. Exxon and BP never received the money. They knocked it back because plans for closure were underway, and $2.3 billion wasn't enough to change their minds. So what did we vote against? Nothing—a Liberal Party con, a fraud on the voters. I'm so pleased the Liberals dug that one up though; it shows they haven't changed.

By the way, I remind people that Pauline Hanson said: 'Why are we handing over money? We need equity.' No, the Liberals didn't want equity. Just hand over the cash. In her speech in the Liberals' 2021 bail-out bill, Senator Pauline Hanson called on the government to use that money to buy those refineries and put them into the hands of Australian people to maintain our domestic refining capacity. Of course, the Liberals and the Nationals ignored that request.

Let's be clear. Australia is in this mess because the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Greens, the Teals and the Labor Party all still believe in climate change. I tested that last week with my amendment to the appropriation bills that called for the net zero spending to be removed from the budget. Their vote on our amendment is damning. Labor opposed. Liberals opposed. Nationals opposed. Greens opposed. Teal David Pocock opposed. These parties all support giving away another $9 billion to climate prostitutes feeding off the UN net zero scam—parasites killing Australia's energy and economy. So, of course, they're not going to do anything to help the petrol and diesel industry. This government is making a horrible mess of the fuel crisis because it's making decisions based on ideology not practicality—on a scam and contrary to the hard, empirical scientific data. And the globalist Liberals and Nationals are right there with them. Shame on you all!

We need to drill for oil; restore production in the known deposits—and we've got plenty; get started building new refineries; and, in particular, build new gas to petrol plants to use Australia's cheap, natural gas to make our own petrol again. One Nation introduced legislation for a domestic gas reservation to provide the gas we need for that, and of course the uniparty voted it down. When will people realise these tired old parties love their ideology and their donors and hate anyone who doesn't agree with their ideology or with their donors? One Nation cares about everyday Australians, and that's why we're surging in the polls. It's not about patriotism or nationalism. Our surge is the public realising that the old parties do not have their backs and One Nation does.

To remind the Senate, One Nation has already called for the removal of the fuel excise and a three-month moratorium on GST on liquid fuels. Taken together, they will reduce fuel prices outside the trucking industry by 75 cents a litre—a real benefit for everyday Australians. The government has refused to take that measure, even while Treasury is making out like bandits raking in hundreds of millions of dollars each month in additional GST payments on crazy-high fuel prices. I haven't heard a state premier complain about that either, as they benefit from the GST. The states must be held to account, as well, for their greed.

Everyday Australians are filling up their vehicle in terror and, yes, in anger at the Albanese government's greed and arrogance and distance. It's $100 to fill a small car and up to $200 to fill a family car in the most energy-rich nation on Earth. The biggest exporter of hydrocarbons in the world is Australia. Groceries will go unbought; that's if they're available. Clothing and homeware stores are already reporting slow-downs. Your children won't get those new clothes, new shoes or quality groceries, because their parents are having to pay for the stupidity, the arrogance, the dishonesty, the deceit and the greed of the Chalmers-Albanese Labor government. I foreshadow One Nation's second reading amendment on sheet 3747.

I'm pleased the government sees the fuel crisis is real. When we mentioned it first, One Nation were called far right extremists for labelling it. I'm pleased the government sees the regional crisis is now real. Again, One Nation called it first because we listen. Suspend fuel taxes now! (Time expired)

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. I always listen carefully to Senator Roberts. I think he makes often great contributions on debates. Whether I agree with them or not, they're always well thought and considered. One thing I'll point out though, with their vote on the appropriations bill last week—it was actually quite reckless to do, to come into this place and vote against a supply bill, a bill that enables the government to fund essential services: defence, health, education. That's what One Nation voted against last week. They tried to move a pious amendment in relation to net zero, the spirit of which I support. I'm dead against this government's net zero plans and policies and the reckless way that they're affecting our economy, but to move a stunt amendment to a supply bill was a reckless thing for One Nation to do. I wish they were a little more focused on sensible measures to address the issues that Australians are facing, rather than coming in here with those sorts of stunts.

Anyway, I come back to the issue at hand here. This bill gives the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations the power to declare certain applications for road transport contractual chain orders as emergency applications and enable faster regulatory responses when the road transport industry faces sudden, nationally significant disruptions such as sharp fuel price increases. The coalition fully supports the trucking industry. We intend to propose a few amendments to this bill to reflect the industry feedback and aim to support a commercially viable, competitive and effective transport sector. Before I continue with my speech, I want to correct something that Senator Sheldon said in his contribution.

We support the passage of this bill today. We understand what we're dealing with in this country right now. We understand the emergency and the crisis, and that's why we'll be supporting it. We do want to see a retrospective inquiry into the bill, though. That will not in any way stand in the way of this bill having effect as soon as it's given royal assent. Senator Sheldon said that we are proposing to delay the implementation of the bill until 29 May. That is incorrect. What we're calling for enables the bill to pass but requires a retrospective inquiry. We are rushing this bill through. It was only just introduced into the parliament, and we're rushing it through. Given the circumstances, that is appropriate, but we think that it should be examined. This is the house of review, by the way. The government has a tendency to just rush stuff through, and it's inappropriate. There are times when it's appropriate, and, as I said, dealing with this matter right now might be one of those times. But, when you take measures to rush stuff through, you need to open yourself up to transparency and scrutiny and allow the bill to be properly examined by way of an inquiry. That way, when we come back in May or June—whenever we're back here—if there are some unintended consequences from this bill passing without proper scrutiny, we will be able to make the necessary amendments to ensure that it achieves its intended objectives. Senator Sheldon is a good friend of mine, and I don't like criticising friends, but faithful are the wounds of a friend; they're better than the kiss of an enemy. So I will say, Senator Sheldon: you are wrong in this instance. We don't want to stand in the way of the passage of this bill.

The coalition has called for lots of things in relation to dealing with this fuel crisis. The government is not fully responding to the fuel impacts affecting the transport sector. That's why the coalition has called for a temporary reduction in the petrol and diesel excise, along with a corresponding adjustment to the heavy vehicle road user charge. A reduction in the fuel excise would lower the tax on petrol and other liquid fuels, from 52.5c to 26.3c per litre. The coalition has indicated it would work with the government to identify appropriate budget offsets to support long-term fiscal outcomes and manage inflation without introducing new taxes. We could go after the crazy EV subsidy, for example, which is enabling wealthy people, essentially, to get a tax deduction for purchasing an EV, while the people that can't afford to get an EV are paying at the bowser every day. It's $3.20-odd a litre for diesel at the moment. We could go after things like that to make the savings that are necessary.

Now, such a reduction would provide relief to small business and to tradespeople and essential workers who rely on driving as part of their daily work. Halving the petrol tax would result in a saving of 26.3 cents per litre at the pump, which represents half of the fuel excise and more than 10 per cent of the average price of, for example, unleaded 91 in New South Wales as of 25 March 2026. The proposal is a temporary and targeted measure with the stated aim of easing cost-of-living pressures for Australians affected by higher fuel prices.

This bill also gives us the opportunity in this debate to shine some light on the government's general mishandling of the fuel crisis, particularly by the Prime Minister and the hapless Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Mr Bowen. A headline in the West Australian said last Friday: 'Crisis? What crisis? Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen's panicked response to the energy shock.' Every community in Australia, metropolitan, regional and rural, has to deal with the shortcomings of this government's handling of the fuel crisis. Petrol prices have soared more than 30 per cent in four weeks. Farmers and others in agricultural and mining industries in my state of Western Australia, who rely heavily on diesel and fertiliser to go about their jobs, now have to reduce output and prioritise what is feasible with the existing fuel capacity they have. It's as if the government did not even consider what would ultimately occur after the gulf situation happened.

Back in 2020, the then opposition, now government, liked to tell the former Morrison government at frequent intervals what it had done wrong with the preparations related to the pandemic. Remember that? Remember the COVID pandemic? Well, increasingly, we are seeing that rhetoric come back to bite this government. Senator Ayres said in this place, sitting somewhere around here when he was in opposition back in June 2021:

The government has been warned for years that fuel security is a matter of national importance. The question is: why did it take them so long to act?

He also said:

Australia will still be noncompliant with its International Energy Agency obligation to hold 90 days of reserves. Australia will still disproportionately depend on imported fuel from vulnerable supply chains, still leaving us vulnerable to geopolitical tensions.

Indeed, we could ask the same thing of the minister here today. Well, we have been.

Reviewing the actions of the current minister for energy over the past two weeks is like watching that old episode of Fawlty Towersthe one in which the hapless Manuel starts a fire in the kitchen, which then results in setting off the building's fire alarms. Each time Manuel frantically runs in to tell Basil Fawlty, the hotel proprietor, about the fire, Fawlty sends Manuel back into the kitchen, into harm's way. At first, Fawlty's reaction ranges from indifference to ignorance. When he realises that there is, indeed, a fire, he causes more confusion and panic than Manuel ever did when he tried to warn him in the first place. Well, the minister for energy is a bit like Basil Fawlty: 'Fire? What fire? Nothing to see here. What problem? No problem. What crisis? No crisis.'

And then let's unpack the form of the minister for energy over the past couple of weeks. First, he said the country had plenty of fuel supplies and told the reporters in Brisbane that fuel rationing was not even being contemplated. Then, last Monday, he told the House of Representatives that his own department—the one he is responsible for—was undertaking analysis for fuel rationing. He's told commuters that it was un-Australian to panic-buy fuel and stock up on surplus supplies, yet, in the Perth suburb of Nollamara, one motorist who'd already waited for 40 minutes for fuel and anticipated another 30-minute wait put it plainly. They said, 'I have to because I'm working every day, so I need fuel, and what's going on at the moment with the oil—it could get worse.'

Minister, Australians are not mugs. They know what fuel reserves this country has, and certainly, with the minister behaving like Basil Fawlty, he's not giving them any assurances or even comfort. People are not acting out of hysteria; they are responding to uncertainty and the lack of leadership.

I want to deal very quickly with this idea that it's people who are going to Bunnings and buying a jerry can and putting it in their boot or on their ute and filling it up—that 20 litres of extra fuel that they've bought—that is bringing down the distribution system. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's not the 20 litres or 40 litres. Commuters can hoard only so much fuel. Your fuel tank has a certain capacity, and then you might be able to get a couple of extra jerry cans. That's not what is pulling down the system. Yet the way the government has carried on in the past couple of weeks—blaming commuters, blaming consumers, motorists, for having a bit of extra demand—is ridiculous. I mean, come on. It's people who are maybe buying tens of thousands of litres of extra fuel. It's not the average commuter who's bought a jerry can from Bunnings. Australians are not mugs.

This is not an isolated incident. This is happening every day in every part of this country. Working Australians are queuing for fuel, budgeting their time and income, and worrying about how much worse things are going to get. We know that many Australians are cancelling their Easter holiday plans. They can't do the big commute. They can't do the big drive. They can't hook up their caravan and go far away, because of the cost and the worry about whether they'll get there and not be able to refuel to come home. This is not another episode of Fawlty Towers. This is a very serious real-life situation. Yet the minister is performing the role of an actor. What Australians see is confusion, mixed messages, and a government reacting instead of preparing, despite its warnings way back in 2021. This government needs to step up and take action.

I'll close by sharing the sentiments of many Western Australians, echoed by Derek Goforth, a father of three living and working in Geraldton, who wrote in the Geraldton Guardian on 27 March, just last week:

West Australians are practical people—

I agree—

We understand that global markets play a role. We understand that not everything can be controlled locally. But we also expect honesty, clarity, and when things go wrong, action. At the moment, what many of us are hearing is one thing, while experiencing another.

I couldn't agree more with Derek up there in Geraldton.

Prime Minister, responsibility cannot be accepted in words alone. It must be demonstrated in action. Just saying that it's not your responsibility because it's the responsibility of the states is not okay; it's not acceptable. When we've got fuel shortages across the country—and we just had the most magnificent rains across the Wheatbelt over the weekend, beautiful—those farmers, for whom now is the time to go and sow their crops, to fertilise their fields, are not sure they're going to do it, because they don't know whether they'll have the supply of fuel and fertiliser over the next six to nine months while their crops grow.

So we've got to take action, and we're not seeing this prime minister step up and take the action that is needed. We need secure fuel supplies. We need secure fertiliser supplies. We've got to get fuel to where it's critically needed. Prime Minister, do your job. Just get the job done.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I proudly rise to make my contribution to the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. I didn't intend to make a contribution today, because I'd rather cut the time down and get the vote on and get on with it. But I can't be silent. I listened with the greatest respect to some of the contributions—not the one from my learned friend Senator O'Sullivan, who is one of the good ones, but to the contribution from Senator Roberts. I have a lot of time for Senator Roberts, but I have to clear this up.

Firstly, I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge in the gallery today some industry legends, and in no particular order; I'll start from the left and work my way across: Michael Kaine, National Secretary of the Transport Workers' Union, and Peter Anderson, the CEO of VTA and also the chair of the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation. See that gang? We've got the union and the bosses sitting side by side.

This ain't a phenomenon that started this morning. This has been going on for 20 years. We have been working together to establish and try and implement a safe, sustainable and viable transport industry. I tilt my hat. I'll go along the chairs here: Glyn Castanelli, the National President of the National Road Freighters Association—it's good to see you, Glyn—And, Brownie, you're here too, mate. Guess what? Glyn was an owner-driver like me. Now, with all of these collectors up here—and there's many more—I'm going to take the opportunity to name them. They've been working in this building solidly for probably about the last seven or eight years, week in and week out, not only meeting with government senators and members but meeting with opposition senators and members, shadow ministers, One Nation.

Senator Roberts stood up there and said this is some union folly. Senator Roberts, this mob up here, along with the Victorian Transport Association, NatRoad, Tasmanian Transport Association, Road Freight NSW, Queensland Trucking Association, South Australian Road Transport Association, Western Roads Federation, Northern Territory Road Train Association, owner-drivers from around the nation and the TWU, are pleading to put the case. We need to be together to have a safe, sustainable and viable transport industry. Senator Roberts, I know you're not listening—you've had to go off to another meeting—but your staff will be listening. Senator Roberts, they came and saw you too, and they saw your boss, Senator Hanson. You know what you did? 'Don't come Monday.' Put out the odd tweet saying, 'Truckies need to be looked after.' We appreciate that. Yes, they do need to be.

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

I will remind you we do need to refer to senators by their correct title.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sorry, did I miss Senator Hanson?

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

Yes.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, I thought I said 'Senator Hanson'.

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

I don't think you did. If I'm wrong, I apologise.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know me. I'm full of respect for the chair and full of respect for my colleagues in the chamber here. But you gave them that when they asked you to vote—am I allowed to do that? Do you want me to retract that?

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

Senator Sterle, continue.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will. I get emotional on this because this is my livelihood, as you know. I've got diesel running through my veins. I can't help this. I get so passionate. You gave them the thumb. You didn't vote for it. Senator Roberts, it's not right to say this is union folly. I've just gone off and announced who has been working on this for six or seven years. The whole transport industry united to come together to give us a safe, sustainable and viable transport industry.

I promised my colleagues I wouldn't speak for long on this. I'm going to park Senator Glenn Sterle, a Labor senator from Western Australia, over here. I'm going to park the same bloke, who is a proud life member of the Transport Workers' Union not because I've come through university and thought: This is a nice union. I want to join them.' It's because I was a truck driver. I still am a truck driver, ladies and gentlemen. Three generations of the Sterles are truck drivers. My son is still out there. Two weeks ago, I did a two-up run, a lovely 909 with three trailers to Broome, to keep my hand in. This is what I do. When other people are out gardening, I go truck-driving. I want to talk about Glenn Sterle, the owner-driver, in all my years, when I was at Ansett Wridgways, which was then gobbled up by TNT.

Let's talk about fuel. My wife and I lived through the Falklands War. Trust me, when I'm coming home from the Northern Territory and I heard that a war's broken out, my first reaction as a truck driver owner-driver was, 'My goodness me, what's that going to mean for my fuel bill and our fuel bill?' I lived and breathed that. Fortunately it didn't go on for long, but the first thing I did was get back to Perth. We didn't have mobile phones in those days. I put up a notice on the notice board, got all the owner-drivers together and said: 'Boys'—and they were all boys—'we're going to go in there, and we're going to dust up Ansett Wridways, because we ain't carting their freight up and down the highways to the goldfields, to the south-west, the eastern states, the north-west and the Northern Territory supplementing their clients. No damn way.' It was a pretty easy decision. It was either they pay us the fuel levy or we park the trucks up.

I still say that today. Why should the trucking industry—there were some contributions from over here. I know you're going to pull me up if I start mentioning some of the rubbish that came out of Senator McKenzie's mouth, so I won't say that. But I am someone who's paid the fuel bills and someone who understands what it means when you kiss the wife goodbye and the baby on the head while there's still the bill on the fridge—you know the magnet on the fridge, the finger with the ribbon tied? I'm talking to the truckies now. I am one of those of us who have actually been in small business. You can all answer for yourselves. I don't know what your background was. Mine's small business in the trucking industry. I know how darn painful it is as you're going up the highway and you're trying to navigate a bunch of other road trains and other users, while, in the back of your mind all the time, is: 'My goodness me, I haven't paid that bill because they haven't paid me. Ansett's been a bit slow.'

While I sit here and hear some of the rubbish that comes out today, I want to put the truckies' position there. I don't speak just for owner-drivers; I speak for every trucking company in this nation because 70 per cent of our industry is small- to medium-sized business. I still call it 'our industry' because I'm still a damn proud activist in this industry. We started with one truck, and then we had the opportunity to buy a second and third. That's what's made this nation so great—that truckies could drag themselves up by their bootlaces to become something in this nation.

But to listen to some of the diatribe that this is a union folly—this is what I heard earlier on, through you, Deputy President Brockman—and asking why small business should have to pay the way—well, what about us truckies who are small business? I say this with the greatest of respect, to my colleagues across the chamber: when you talk small business, do you know how insulting it is to us owner-drivers in the trucking industry, in small business, to hear that we don't matter but the corner shop matters or the shoe shop matters or the farmer matters, to hear, 'You truckies are not the same as small business, so why should we have to pay your fuel costs?' I have to get that off my chest because I've got a burning fire in here, and it's been here for 50-odd years. I will defend the trucking industry to my very last breath. Enough of the talk. Get this bill through. We're not the bank of Australia. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but someone has got to pay for our fuel costs.

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

I rise today to talk about the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. At its core, this bill appears to be an effort to fast-track a process to deal with emergency fuel related pressure in the road transport sector. In plain English, this appears to be an effort to get relief through the chain faster when we're dealing with fuel price surges and when truckies are getting smashed—and we acknowledge that; truckies are getting smashed. There is real merit in this because, when fuel costs explode overnight, the owner-driver and the small operator are often the ones who get crushed first. They cannot absorb endless cost increases. They cannot run at a loss forever. If they park the truck, the whole country feels it: freight stops, shelves are empty and the cost of living goes up again, which then flows through in higher inflationary pressures and mortgages. It's terrible for the entire economy.

I acknowledge that, plainly, in what is a genuine crisis, a genuine emergency that One Nation has been calling out for nearly a month now—we were the first to raise it—this fuel crisis that we are dealing with is going to have severe consequences through the entire chain. We have to acknowledge that, in a genuine emergency, government cannot just stand there and do nothing—which was what was happening. If there is a way to keep the truckies on the road, to help small operators survive and to help stop the entire burden being dumped on one of the weaker links in the chain, that has value.

But let us be honest about what this bill is and what this bill is not. This is not a fuel security bill. It doesn't create more fuel, it doesn't build more storage, it doesn't reopen refineries, it does not increase domestic extraction and it does not prepare Australia properly for future international supply shock. It is a short-term mechanism to shuffle costs and responsibilities inside the freight system after the crisis has already arrived—a crisis that we were grossly unprepared for because of long-term failures from this government and past governments. So, yes, whether there's merit here—we're not going to deny that; there is merit, and we believe it's important to help truckies stay on the road. But we're seeing and dealing with a reminder as to how badly this government failed to prepare this nation in the first place. That is why we are being forced into these urgent fixes—because we are completely exposed due to long-term failure by government.

This crisis did not come out of nowhere. We knew that, in the event of global conflict, our supply chains were exposed and Australia was exposed because Labor, and coalition governments in the past, have left this country weak, dependent and unprepared. For years, One Nation has warned that Australia's fuel security was fragile. We have known we were too reliant on imported fuel; we have said so for years and years. We have known our onshore storage is not good enough. We have known our domestic refinery capacity has declined, and we know that Australia would be in trouble if global shipping routes were hit or the world market seized up—which is why, for years, One Nation has been arguing that we need to do more to improve our onshore storage. We need to do more to increase our resiliency as a nation so we're not so dependent on these foreign supply chains. Yet instead of treating fuel security as a matter of national resilience and sovereignty, over the last couple of years since getting into government Labor has drifted along and hoped for the best.

I very clearly remember, actually, Labor being much more strident on this issue in 2019, I believe. I remember Bill Shorten talking about this and warning about this like One Nation was, something that Labor then failed to act on once they got into government. A serious government would have actually acted to build a strategic resilience. A serious government would have increased onshore fuel storage. A serious government would have fought harder to keep and strengthen domestic refining. A serious government would have backed more domestic extraction and made sure Australia had the capacity to stand on its own two feet in a crisis. A serious government would have seen fuel not just as a commodity but as the lifeblood of the economy—of freight, of farming, of emergency services and of everyday Australian life.

Instead, what have we seen from this government? We have seen an obsession with net zero ideology, a dogma. We have seen governments obsessed with emissions targets—applause from international agencies and things like that—and green symbolism, while the hard, practical foundations of an economy that is strong, resilient and reliant were completely neglected. Net zero is not just some abstract environmental target; it is a mindset of this government, and it tells politicians that they must dissuade, discourage and destroy traditional energy markets and traditional energy sources. Instead of making those long-term investments in our fuel extraction capacity and our fuel refining capacity, they punish those industries. They punish those dependable industries that we've relied on for so many years and pretend that a slogan—net zero—is a substitute for national capability. It creates policy uncertainty, it drives away investment from those industries, and it makes government less willing to back oil and gas refining and the infrastructure that actually keeps our economy moving.

You know how we know it keeps the economy moving? When we see it disappear, we're suddenly in a crisis. That is why Australia, under Labor, has become weaker, not stronger. We cannot run a country by wishfully thinking that everything's going to be okay. We clearly cannot run a country on industrial wind and solar out in rural and regional areas. You cannot move freight on solar panels. You cannot stock supermarket shelves with wind turbines. What we're seeing now—this failure to prepare and to ensure that we're resilient—is going to flow along the supply chain into our supermarkets and, ultimately, onto the kitchen table. Families are going to have to deal with higher costs. Small businesses and truckies are going to face serious difficulties with their industry.

While we're happy to support these measures to provide relief, let's be clear about why we're having to deal with these urgent measures in the first place. It's because of long-term failure by this Labor government and Liberal governments. That's why this bill is so revealing—because the government is now turning to a workplace regulation, an emergency Fair Work process, because it failed to do the bigger job earlier. It failed to manage this pain after the fact because we did not build resilience before the fact. This goes beyond this crisis. Net zero more broadly is making Australia more expensive and less secure. It has fed into higher energy costs, it has undermined confidence in dependable supply, it has weakened the productive side of the economy, and it has made us more vulnerable to shocks. Australians are paying for that, truckies are paying for that, farmers are paying for that and families are paying for that at the checkout.

This should be a wake-up call, because, as serious as this disruption is, it is still a drop in the ocean compared to what we may face in the future and what we may face if China follows through on its threats to move on Taiwan. This is the point we should be making very clearly. If a disruption like what we are seeing now can shake confidence, push up fuel prices and pressure our freight industry, imagine what a conflict with Taiwan would mean with how exposed we are to China's economy. The shock to shipping routes, trade, fuel availability, supply chains, supermarkets, farming imports, manufacturing imports and everyday household goods would be on a completely different, infinitely worse scale. That is what we should also be looking to prepare for.

If you think that this crisis is affecting your industry now, the crisis that we are failing to prepare for and should be preparing for—and it looks like the Labor government is again wishfully thinking and hoping that this crisis will not occur, but we know one thing that we can be very clear about is that, in the future, conflict will arise overseas. If we're not ready, if we can't stand on our own two feet, then we'll be back here in a few years time with more bandaid fixes. Fuel security is not optional. Domestic refining is not optional. Onshore storage is not optional. Domestic extraction is not optional. Strategic preparedness is not optional. We need to be acting on these things now, and we must be doing so with more urgency than this government is showing and past governments have failed to show.

There is another part of this crisis that again the Labor Party doesn't want to talk about: their mass migration agenda. Another thing it has to accept is that, when you bring in record of numbers of people into this country year after year without matching infrastructure, housing, energy and national capacity, while at the same time destroying our capacity to refine or extract our own fuel, you're going to have more demand. Without doing what is needed in order to make sure the system can handle it, you're going to have more demand for goods, more demand for freight, more demand for diesel powered transport, more demand for road, warehouses, logistics and supply chains. There will be more pressure on the whole system.

That also matters in a fuel crisis. If you already have a stretched country, stretched infrastructure, stretched housing and stretched energy supply, then any shock hits harder. That's exactly what Labor's mass migration agenda has done. It takes an already strained system and places even more demand on it, so when fuel costs spike or supplies are disrupted the consequences are worse because the baseline pressure was already high.

This is not about blaming individual migrants; it's about blaming Labor's failure to manage the system properly. It's about this government using mass migration as an economic crutch while refusing to build the infrastructure and productive capacity needed to support it. It's about this government chasing headline CPI growth, desperately attempting to patch over the cracks in the economy that their failure to invest in our capacity has caused. When a crisis occurs we are already under strain, we are already stretched, and that shock wave—that damage—flows on through.

They're saying we need to make sure that the fuel gets out of the city into the regions where we need it. One of the reasons our cities have such a need for fuel is that the population has been artificially boosted by a government obsessed with mass migration. In the end, their mass migration agenda has made this country more congested, more expensive, and made it harder for us to absorb shocks. It drives demand faster than supply can keep up with. It feeds the housing shortage, pushes up rents, pushes up wages in some sectors, overloads infrastructure and increases dependence on complex, fragile supply chains just to maintain normal life. That is why this issue cannot be looked in isolation.

The fuel crisis is not happening in a vacuum. It is hitting a country already under pressure from population growth well beyond what our system can comfortably absorb. If you have more people, you need more freight: more food moved, more goods moved, more construction material moved, more fuel consumed, more pressure on trucking, more wear on infrastructure and more exposure when things go wrong. And when things do go wrong—which they clearly have, because we are now in a crisis that this government is scrambling to deal with—who pays? It's the everyday Australians: the people paying the rent, the people buying groceries, the truckies and smaller owner-operators filling their tanks trying to keep their businesses alive—the family businesses that do not have the luxury of passing on every cost that comes down the line.

That is why mass migration is also part of this same pattern of failure, just like net zero. In practice, it often means more pressure on the nation, less resilience and a lower quality of life for the people already here. A government serious about our nation's sovereign capacity would be looking to dramatically slow the mass migration to a level we can sustain, because we can't sustain what is going on right now. A serious and sensible government would put Australians first in housing, infrastructure and economic planning. It would stop using population growth as a substitute for productivity and national strength. It would understand that resilience matters. Our capacity to stand on our own two feet matters.

Yes, a fuel crisis is about energy and freight. But it also sits inside a bigger story—a story of a government that has loaded more and more pressure onto the country while doing less and less to make the country capable of handling it. That is what they have done with their mass migration agenda. It has amplified strain across the board and makes this crisis and every crisis of a similar nature more painful and more difficult than it needs to be.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us in a position where we can say two things at once and both things are true. First, in the middle of the genuine crisis we we're in we cannot ignore the immediate reality facing truckies and small business owner-operators. If they go under, the country suffers. If they park the truck, supply chains seize up. If this bill helps us get some relief through the system faster and helps keep some truckies on the road, then that is a real benefit, and we acknowledge that. But, second, we should never confuse emergency damage control with serious national leadership, which is what we are lacking. This bill is not a fuel security strategy. It's not a plan for more sovereignty or a plan for resilience. It is a quick slap patch after a failure.

While One Nation acknowledges the merit of acting and the need to help truckies survive the immediate shock, we say clearly that Australians deserve much better than emergency patches and after-the-fact fixes. We need fuel security. We need more domestic capacity. We need a practical government that sees the danger we're in and the crises that are coming down the line. Australia needs to put our national resilience ahead of an obsession with net zero and mass migration. That is the real lesson here. Until governments face the truth, our country will keep lurching from one avoidable crisis to the next. Unless we take steps to stand on our own two feet as a nation, we will be back here in a few years time having the exact same argument. (Time expired)

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given the alacrity and urgency with which the government has introduced this legislation into the chamber and given the lack of review, scrutiny and debate that have been provided for it, you would think that this legislation would be about addressing the national fuel crisis. But will this legislation lower the price of fuel across Australia? No. Will it improve transparency around supply? No. Will it unblock bottlenecks and improve coordination with the states and territories? No. Will it improve Australia's refining capacity? No. Is it going to increase our stockpiles? No. All this bill does is give the minister greater power and introduce more regulations into our industrial relations system. There are elements of it that are worthy of consideration, debate and, potentially, approval, but it's a complete misallocation of priorities and resources to introduce a measure like this. The bill is basically designed to give the government what it's always wanted—a greater power for ministers to intervene in industrial relations—and to use as justification the fuel crisis, something which this measure alone will do very little to address.

The Labor government has dithered, procrastinated and delayed for four years now when it comes to fuel security. Instead of ensuring Australians can access fuel when they need it, the government spent the last three weeks blaming Australians for trying to access fuel. It said people were contributing to the crisis and accused them of being un-Australian for taking prudential measures to safeguard their own business or their own household, instead of levelling with the Australian public about the challenging fuel outlook we face, being transparent about where the shortages and bottlenecks are and harnessing all the powers of the federal government—including the convening power to bring together state and territory premiers, industry, business and road users—to coordinate the best response to this crisis.

What's striking about this response is that, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister, the member for Grayndler, said he understood the importance of this issue. I remember in 2020, I think, he posted on social media about the price of fuel, which was then about $1.80, saying, 'Has Scott Morrison'—who was then the Prime Minister—'even checked the price of fuel lately?' The price is now about 50 per cent higher than that. In 2018 the then opposition leader and now prime minister said, 'Fuel security is critical to our national interest, and the current government is asleep at the wheel.'

I would put to you that, over the past four years, the current government has been asleep at the wheel. Since they came to office, we haven't seen any more refineries built in Australia, we haven't seen Australia's level of fuel reserves materially increase and we haven't seen any greater compliance with our international obligations, under the International Energy Agency, and now the government is being forced to play catch-up. That's okay—we will support them in playing catch-up, but the measures need to be directed at alleviating what we're dealing with today.

As I said, we're dealing today with higher prices. This bill will not address that. We're dealing with a shortage of available supplies. This bill will not address that. We are dealing with a lack of refining capacity and are hostage to international supply chains. Again, this bill will not address that. There are now 880 petrol stations reporting fuel outages nationwide: 340 in my own state of New South Wales, 178 in Queensland, 163 in Victoria, 110 in South Australia and others across Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. In New South Wales the average price of diesel is 307c per litre. And E10—what many motorists put in their passenger vehicle—is at 248.5c per litre.

This is hitting households and is also hitting small businesses, tradies, truckies, freight operators and families—anyone who is reliant upon transport to get around. And it's not only affecting them at the bowser but increasingly will be affecting them in terms of the price they pay for goods on the supermarket shelf, because the cost of transportation, the cost of energy, is embedded in absolutely everything we consume.

The coalition has been clear. Unlike this bill, what we are proposing is to offer immediate and practical relief by, firstly, halving the fuel excise for three months and, secondly, reducing the heavy vehicle road user charge. Halving the fuel excise for three months would immediately cut 26c per litre off the price people are paying for fuel, delivering immediate cost-of-living relief. This is designed to be temporary and targeted and to ease pressure on households and small businesses.

We have also identified savings that will pay for this. But I would point out that the government's own electricity rebate scheme, in its several iterations, cost the budget $6 billion all up, in about three or four different phases. At that point the government recognised that spiking wholesale energy prices merited relief for households that were dealing with the inflationary consequences of that. Well, today we have spiking petrol and diesel prices, and surely the case is as strong to provide households with immediate cost-of-living relief for that.

When the coalition was in government we passed the Fuel Security Act, we introduced what's called a minimum stockholding obligation, and we rescued the last two refineries that were threatening to go out of business in Australia. Importantly, we put in place the legislative, policy and legal framework to allow subsequent governments to improve our fuel security. We had the mechanisms in place to incentivise the maintenance as well as the growth of refining capacity. We had the mechanism in place for the minister to change the minimum stockholding obligation.

All these powers existed when this government came into office. And, since this government has come into office, the international outlook has deteriorated dramatically. That's just an objective observation. Since this government came to office, we have had a war in Europe involving major powers—Russia and Ukraine as well as European Union powers and the United States. That war is now in its fifth year. We have had a war in the Middle East, again involving major powers. Its currently iteration—Israel, the United States, and Iran, but there have been multiple phases in this conflict—has been going for 2½ years.

You would think that if you wound back the clock five years you would realise that the security environment today is different to what it was five years ago, and our ability to rely upon international supply chains, freedom of navigation and commerce on the high seas, sea lanes of communication—everything that has underpinned Australia as a modern, open trading global economy—has changed dramatically in the past four years. But the government has not changed any of the policies or any of the settings to adjust and allow for that more risky environment. If we put in place four years ago the Fuel Security Act minimum stockholding obligation and the policy levers to support refining capacity, then, in the four years since this government came to office, you would have thought that, with everything that's happened internationally, they would have built upon those mechanisms. But instead they have done nothing. They've been completely idle these past four years and now they are dealing with the consequences of that.

Even four weeks ago, before this current conflict broke out, the government had nothing to say to warn Australians about this. This conflict between the United States and Iran was eminently foreseeable. The United States had issued public deadlines. They had moved two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. They had engaged in a diplomatic process with some clear time limitations put on that. But, in the week before this crisis broke, you didn't once have the Prime Minister front the media, hold a press conference, warn the Australian public—never mind the motoring Australian public—about the risks of this conflict. We saw no steps from the government to improve fuel security in advance of this crisis. We saw no attempts to warn the travelling Australian public by changing the level of our travel advice. We didn't see the Foreign minister stand up. We didn't see the defence minister stand up. This sort of indolence that they displayed before this current war broke out has been mirrored right across their past four years in government, when they have done nothing to improve refining capacity, nothing to grow the minimum stockholding obligation, nothing to increase the stockpiles Australia holds, nothing to build redundancy and complementarity into our supply chains.

On this legislation in particular, let's be clear here. It doesn't introduce a new framework. The so-called 'road transport contractual chain order framework' already exists in law. All this particular piece of legislation does is allow the minister to look at applications under that framework, determine that they are emergency applications and expedite their consideration. I think that, in the circumstances we face, that is something worthwhile. I think that is positive. But I think we need to be clear that this will not lower the price of fuel or diesel or petrol for anyone. It will not provide one more litre than already exists here in Australia. It's not going to improve our capacity to meet our own fuel security needs. All it will do—and this is worthy—is provide some relief to people who are locked into contracts where the rapid increase in the price of fuel makes their continued operation unviable.

But, if this is a temporary emergency—and it is—then why are the powers that we're being asked to provide the minister under this act permanent? We are talking about a temporary relief measure to address a temporary crisis, but we are enshrining via legislation a permanent power for the minister to determine that an emergency application exists in any future scenario. If this is a temporary crisis, why is there no sunset provision to this legislation? Why will this power be given to the minister in perpetuity? If this is a temporary crisis, why is there no review mechanism built into this legislation? These are all good public policy features of legislation that everyone in this chamber is familiar with—sunset provisions for situations where the emergency is likely to pass and automatic reviews of legislation within a year, two years or a specified timeframe to see if it's working as it should. But this bill does not contain any of those protections. There's no automatic review. There's no sunset provision. I'm not even sure if the instrument that the minister uses to determine that an emergency application exists is a disallowable instrument. To be honest, I haven't had the time to look at the legislation closely enough to see if that's the case.

But I don't think that withstands scrutiny. This is a power grab. This is about giving a minister greater unfettered authority, and I don't think the business case has been made for that. As I said, this is addressing a second- or third-order issue of the crisis we're in, not a first-order issue. It is providing the minister a broad discretion that doesn't currently exist, but the framework to address this policy problem—the road transport contractual chain order mechanism—does exist, and we're being asked to grant these powers without the normal scrutinies and processes of legislative review and deliberation that the Senate is designed and empowered to conduct.

Now, if you could tell me that this legislation, if passed today by us and given assent this week, would immediately bring down prices, would immediately improve supply, would immediately improve the cost of living for Australia and would immediately provide security to manufacturers and transport, then I would be prepared to look past some of these concerns, but not even the most fervent supporters of this bill can pretend it does any of these things. The most they can say is it will have an impact on the margins in alleviating some of the pain associated with this crisis. As I said, that is not an unworthy goal, but the mechanisms we're being asked to support are disproportionate to the benefits that this legislation is intended to achieve. For those reasons, we will be moving amendments—I expect the coalition will be moving amendments—to this bill and we will continue to scrutinise this government's response to an ongoing energy crisis.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. I do so proudly as part of a Labor government that believes in one simple idea: if you work hard, you deserve a fair go. That belief has guided this government from day 1. It's why we've lifted wages, strengthened workplace protections and stood up for the people who too often get squeezed at the bottom of the system. That's why we're acting again today—because Australian truck drivers deserve nothing less.

It's interesting. The former speaker condemns the government for not pre-empting wars, not taking action, not rushing. His view would be that you should just rush in and make decisions, which was the hallmark of their 10 years when they were last in government. Well, we aren't like that. We actually consult and we take considered decisions.

Truckies keep this country moving, and not once did I hear them, in any of their contributions, giving any credence or support to the trucking industry in this country. They deliver the food on our tables, the fuel that powers our communities and the goods that keep regional and remote Australia connected. When disasters strike, when shelves need restocking, when communities need supplies, truck drivers are there. But right now they're under immense pressure. We've listened to them and we've taken the action. Global fuel prices have surged as a result of the war in the Middle East, not because of the Albanese government and not because the Labor government hasn't taken actions. It's happened because of the war in the Middle East, which we cannot, as much as we would like to, end right this minute. We can't do it.

These prices have been a shock. They've been unpredictable and completely beyond the control of Australian workers and small businesses. Once again, those at the bottom of the supply chain have been asked to carry the heaviest burden, and Labor does not accept that. We do not accept a system where costs are pushed downhill while the biggest players protect their margins while truck drivers are left wondering if they can keep the lights on. That is not fair, and it's not the Australia that we believe in.

Unlike those opposite, we don't just talk the talk, playing politics at every opportunity when Australians are feeling the impacts of the consequences of the war in the Middle East. We're not about playing politics. That's what those people on the other side do each and every time. The Prime Minister is consulting to ensure that we take the actions needed to support our communities. We fully understand the impact of the increase on the fuel prices on the trucking industry and all motorists. I just want to mention that the Tasmanian government have made public transport available in Tasmania, which is a good thing. But what they've done is overlook the impact on the taxi industry. Fuel costs for taxis, particularly the maxi taxis that transport people with disabilities, have gone up exponentially, and there's been no assistance. I'm calling on the state government in Tasmania to take immediate action to support the taxi industry.

This government has already taken strong action to fix the broken systems in broad transport. We recognise that supply chains don't operate at just one level; decisions made at the top have real consequences for workers at the bottom. That's why we empowered the independent Fair Work Commission to set enforceable standards across contractual chains, so responsibility is shared more fairly. But fairness also means being responsive. Right now the laws move too slowly. While fuel prices spiked today, the system tells truckies to wait months before help can even be considered. That's not good enough when livelihoods, local communities and our economy are on the line.

This bill is about fixing that. It ensures the system can respond when Australians need it. That's why there's a National Cabinet meeting taking place today with the Prime Minister, state premiers and territory leaders. We consult and we want to work together. This is a crisis that is impacting the entire nation. Let's be clear: this is not a blank cheque. This legislation is not overreach. This is a targeted, responsible measure designed for exceptional circumstances exactly like the situation we are facing now. What it does is send a clear message: Labor has the backs of working Australians. When truck drivers go under, communities suffer.

I repeat that: when truck drivers go under, then communities suffer. Regional towns lose their services, supply chains fracture, prices rise further and the economy becomes more fragile. We cannot build a strong economy by ignoring the people who keep it running. We didn't do that during COVID. We did actually value people like truck drivers and people in retail. As soon as COVID was over and people were back to normal, we forgot about those people. Well, this government has not. That's why this bill matters beyond in chamber. It matters to families wondering if their local transport operator will survive—families wondering whether they will be able to keep their truck on the road. It matters to regional communities that rely on road freight, and it matters to an economy that needs stability, resilience and fairness to grow.

This reform has been called for by industry and workers alike. It reflects common sense, fairness and Labor's values, and that's why we're taking this action. At a time when global uncertainty is hitting local industries, Australians expect their government to act now, not to sit on their hands or hide behind processes but to step up, and that's what this government is doing. I want to congratulate Minister Rishworth, because I think she, in her portfolio responsibility, has shown the leadership that Australians know they will get from this Labor government. This is exactly what this Labor government is doing, and it's what we've been doing since day one. We are standing with Australian workers. We're standing with and supporting our communities. And we're standing up for an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, because that's what a Labor government does. Without our truck drivers and taxi drivers, the impact will be far greater. I commend this legislation, as I said. I congratulate the Prime Minister and the minister for taking the step of introducing this bill. I'd like to think everyone in this chamber will support this. We know they normally vote against everything that we put up about the cost of living, giving energy relief and reducing the cost of medications. We know they didn't support a pay rise for aged-care workers or people in early childhood education. They're the party of 'no, no, no'. Well, on this occasion, you need to support truck drivers. You need to support regional Australia. You need to support Australia.

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. Labor has forgotten Australians. We've heard some evidence today they might have just caught up with what's going on. Finally, the Prime Minister has responded to coalition pressure and, I understand, is moving to change the fuel excise. As I speak, I'm mindful of the fear, anger and frustration that are very real for Australians: anger because Australians are suffering through a fuel crisis that this Labor government firstly denied was real, calling those in the coalition who raised it 'right-wing extremists'; frustration because this government delayed responding, distracted by politics rather than the things that matter to people; and fear because this government is not focused on relief at the bowser—immediate, targeted relief that matters to those most affected.

On Friday, when I left this place, my diesel vehicle fill-up cost me $3 per litre. That's in the city. Today, in just two days, it is a new price of $3.25 a litre. A tank cost me $18 more 48 hours later, and there is not much from this government that tells me where this ends. It is real fear that this government has not understood. There's no plan, no urgency and no understanding, and this government has shown no leadership. That's why Australians are fearful. The coalition will not stop pushing until this Prime Minister acts with the urgency this national emergency demands. This bill Labor has come up with does not bring relief at the bowser or for the bills that need to be paid now. The bill itself didn't amend the fuel excise, and it does not alter the heavy user charge. It provides no immediate relief.

This is not a political attack; it is a statement of fact backed by the lived reality of millions of Australians who cannot find fuel, cannot afford fuel or are watching their businesses buckle under pressure because fuel prices and supply have spiralled out of control. And where is the energy minister while all this unfolds? This is the man who stood at podiums and told Australians, 'There is no problem,' while servo after servo ran dry. Over 870 petrol stations across this country are now reporting some form of fuel outage. This is a national emergency, and the minister is missing in action. This crisis has landed on top of Labor's inflation disaster. That already existed. The Treasurer himself has admitted that Treasury's estimate of five per cent inflation this year was actually conservative. Rising costs were an issue even before this conflict in the Middle East, and this has made it much worse.

Interest rates remain elevated, national debt is racing towards $1 trillion and South Australia carries the burden of record insolvencies—no thanks to the work of state and federal Labor governments. In rural South Australia, locals are watching fuel costs spiral to $3.50 per litre and nearing $4 in most remote parts. Trucking costs are up more than 33 per cent, leaving businesses at breaking point. Already, these costs are being passed on to consumers. Small businesses, cafes and restaurants, which are barely getting by already, are considering implementing a five per cent surcharge to offset their costs. How long before their customers stop coming through the door?

We've heard about the impact on volunteers providing and delivering food to people on aged-care packages. This is having an impact right across the country. Livestock SA, who are in direct contract with producers right across the state, is reporting delays, disruptions and, at times, no fuel at all. We just had rain recently. They have to get their seeds in at exactly the right time or else there's reduced production—or none at all. These delays are putting livestock, crops and livelihoods at risk—even food supply. One primary producer ordered 25,000 litres of fuel and received just 16,000 litres. That's not an inconvenience; for him, that's a crisis, and it's real.

Fuel theft is up. Drive-offs at fuel suppliers are up. I was sent photos on the weekend of fuel tanks broken into on cars parked on ordinary suburban streets. Again, this is real. The only people that don't seem to get it are those people opposite—the Labor Party. In the remote APY Lands, the situation is dire. Fuel costs are approaching $4 per litre for diesel and a single order requires four truckloads, at a cost of between $80,000 and $100,000—money that these community stores don't have, and neither do their customers. Most are on fixed incomes or government income support. They are already going hungry because they cannot drive to stores and, like others, are sacrificing food and other basic necessities.

Correspondence I received from a funeral service provider illustrates just how far the consequences of this crisis reach and how little this government has thought through who gets left behind when the fuel runs short. Funeral services rely on transport—in particular, diesel powered vehicles—to attend places of death, to transfer deceased people and to conduct services across multiple locations. In regional areas those distances are significant. There is no flexibility in the timeline, and families in grief can't be told to wait. Yet funeral service providers are not formally recognised as an essential service within emergency and fuel allocation frameworks. This means that, when fuel is scarce and allocations are made, funeral providers are among the most vulnerable. This is the real-world consequence of a part-time energy minister, asleep at the wheel, and a prime minister with no plan, no urgency and no leadership.

I go back to looking across this chamber at the number of ministers—those people who should be making the decisions and who should have been planning—crossing the chamber for 3½ hours on a single day, instead of being back at their offices and working out, 'How is this going to affect not just my portfolio but also the people in my electorate?' Instead they spent 3½ hours every day crossing the floor in here.

The Prime Minister needs to move fuel to the hundreds of service stations that have run dry. When there's a sign that says that there is no fuel and when you're told not to take so much, well, that's rationing. The coalition has been clear about the fuel excise. The Prime Minister has finally relented to that pressure, but he should have done so earlier. What he could also do is look at a reduction in the heavy vehicle road user charge. That would also provide immediate targeted relief to those who need it now. Addressing excise will ease the crushing pressure on the trucking industry and would send a signal to Australians that their government is actually on their side.

Instead, what has the Prime Minister offered? I couldn't believe it—the suggestion to buy an electric vehicle, just like that. I'm not making it up. In the middle of a national fuel crisis with people in the APY Lands going hungry and with truck drivers facing weekly fuel bills that have jumped by tens of thousands of dollars, the Prime Minister and his government's answer is, 'Well, if you had an electric vehicle, it wouldn't be so tough.' It would be laughable if it wasn't so insensitive and offensive. Every Australian should be angry, because that's not leadership.

Now, going to the legislation before us, the coalition will seek amendments. The amendments seek for this bill to be sent to a committee to inquire into it further, but it will be a retrospective inquiry. The coalition's amendments also seek an independent review as to the effectiveness of the amendments and for that review to be tabled in this parliament. Australians deserve to know that what Labor proposed is actually working. The coalition's amendments are aligned with a request from industry and are in the interests of commercial, competitive and well-functioning transport industries. We ask why this measure is not temporary. We ask why there is no sunset clause. We ask why there is no automatic review provision.

It was the coalition that called on the government to convene National Cabinet to direct fuel supply to where it is in short supply and to accelerate new powers to the ACCC. At every turn, this government has not taken this crisis seriously, but the coalition will. This crisis is now five weeks old. Labor spent the first week denying that the risk existed. Remember when we were told there was plenty of fuel? The second week was spent blaming consumers. In week 3, it was the states and territories that needed to play a greater role and, again, it was consumers who were responsible. It has been more than a week of catching up, outsourcing responsibility to a national fuel coordinator rather than every single minister working out how their portfolios, and the states and territories, should be protected from this.

Australia is at the end of a supply chain—and it's pretty obvious; we're pretty close to the South Pole. It was Labor that did not plan for this supply shock or to protect Australian consumers with all the intelligence available to it, with all the levers at its disposal and with all the members of parliament it has in ministerial positions. It was like a shock to this Labor government. The government did none of the things that were necessary in a timely or responsible manner, and it is Australians who are paying the price. We need the government to move fuel to the servos. It's a move that matters now to every single Australian. We need an end to the excuses and we need the Prime Minister to start listening and to start leading. I commend the coalition's amendments to the Senate.

Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Without trucks, Australia stops. Labor is acting now to ensure we can keep Australia moving. This bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026, gives the Fair Work Commission the power to act quickly in those moments of crisis. At its core, this bill is about something very simple—fairness. It is about fairness for the men and women who keep this country moving, fairness for truck drivers hauling goods across thousands of kilometres, fairness for people who connect farmers with our food markets, fairness for people who keep our supermarket shelves stocked and fairness for small transport operators who are being squeezed out by global forces completely beyond their control.

This bill recognises a reality we cannot ignore: when conflict erupts in the Middle East, demand for fuel spikes here at home. When demand spikes, it is the driver, the subcontractor and the small operator at the bottom of the supply chain who wear the cost. This amendment bill removes the outdated, rigid six-month consultation requirement for contract chain orders during fuel price spikes, because in a crisis six months might as well be six years. This is about responsiveness, fairness and protecting livelihoods in real time.

Moments like this remind us why organisations like the Transport Workers Union are so vital. For decades the TWU has stood between vulnerable workers and powerful interests. It has fought for safe rates, ensuring truck drivers are paid properly so that truckies aren't forced to speed, skip breaks or drive exhausted just to make ends meet. Let's be clear: when drivers are paid fairly and safety is prioritised, lives are saved on our roads. The TWU has led the charge on gig economy reform, demanding that app based workers are treated with dignity and fairness and get workplace and injury protections. It's pushed for stronger safeguards in our transport, aviation and logistics industries for everyone using Aussie roads. The TWU's work has prevented fatal incidents, and it has made Australian roads safer for all of us.

We acknowledge people working around the clock right now. As demand peaks, so does demand on our retail workers and business owners. If you're stuck in a queue for fuel, spare a thought for the service station attendant. If there is anything missing from your normal supermarket shelf, think about the poor staff member who is trying their best to stock shelves with supplies as soon as they arrive on the back of a truck.

Speaking of roads, this moment represents a fork in the road for our nation. We have been here before. In 2019 Australia took a hard-right turn under Scott Morrison. With that came the member for Hume, Angus Taylor, Australia's worst energy minister. What followed was nothing short of a debacle, with 20 different energy policies—and they still can't stick to one. Under Angus Taylor's watch, six of our eight oil refineries closed, domestic fuel production capacity was hollowed out, Australia became dangerously dependent on global supply chains and our fuel reserves fell to alarming levels. So, in his own words, let me say: 'Fantastic. Well done. Great move, Angus.'

Once again, it falls to Labor to clean up a Liberal mess, and we do so working shoulder to shoulder with industry and working people—for example, Labor's Future Made in Australia policy, the biggest jobs investment of our generation. This is $22.7 billion with purpose for our nation's economic security, because if you don't make it you don't control it. So we are turning Australian industry from a ghost town under the Liberals into an economic powerhouse under Labor. We're backing Australian workers, Australian industry and Australian know-how, not just hoping that the market sorts it out. Keeping our smelters open at Mt Isa and at Boyne in Gladstone is saving thousands of jobs. This is how you future-proof a nation: build it; power and back it.

The funniest thing about our Future Made in Australia policy is that it is working so well that even those opposite can't resist in. Our Cheaper Home Batteries program is so popular in Queensland that the biggest uptake has been in Liberal electorates. Our electric car discounts are so practical that even National Party senators themselves are now saying they want to buy EVs. Just last week the new leader, Senator Canavan, said he had been wanting to buy a Tesla for years. And our solar rebates are so effective that they've achieved the impossible: bipartisan rooftop adoption by One Nation.

At the start of this month it was revealed that Senator Hanson had accessed Labor's rebate to install rooftop solar panels on her own home, despite publicly calling for an end to public subsidies for renewable energy projects. So Senator Hanson doesn't believe in net zero but she does believe in solar panels to get her own bills down to zero, although she doesn't believe that the average Aussie should be able to get access to the same rebates that she's already profiting from. You can't trust what One Nation says; you can only trust what they do.

Unlike those opposite, Labor walks the walk when it comes to meaningful nation-building reforms, which is what this bill does. It builds resilience into our economy, it strengthens our supply chains and it protects the people who keep Australia trucking.

Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to talk on the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. This bill, brought on very quickly in this national fuel crisis, is the ultimate mea culpa that is, unfortunately, common from the Labor government. This crisis is now five weeks old, and this is the first we've heard this government acknowledge that there is a problem, despite like-minded countries across the world being weeks ahead of us in planning and preparation.

When we started ringing the alarm bells on this crisis, the Albanese Labor government said there was no problem at all, and the Labor Party was talking down all Australians' concern about their inability to get fuel in the regions. Next, everyday Australians were called Far Right extremists by senior Labor ministers for daring to suggest that this Labor government should do something about this crisis, or that the Prime Minister and his part-time energy minister should even acknowledge the challenges faced by those who feed this nation and transport our goods.

Then Labor had to finally admit there was a problem but, remarkably, they said supply was somehow even better than before, and it was Australians at fault for panic buying, that there was too much demand, that little old ladies were being scared into buying too much fuel. They said Australians were wrong to look at the price of fuel rising past $3 for diesel and to act accordingly and that anyone with a jerry can was hyperventilating and was un-Australian.

The talking down of Australians did not end there. The Senate will recall that the Labor government, as late as Friday, was saying that supply was guaranteed and, again, that Australians going to the servo were un-Australian, that the farmers who were trying to plant were imagining this fuel crisis and that industry was wrong to see the dwindling tankers and scale back their production because of Labor's inability, once again, to handle a crisis. How dare they call citizens un-Australian—citizens who were working on limited information from this government. Labor has left them in the dark, rudderless, unable to make important decisions about their livelihoods.

In the regions, they've made their decisions already. A quarter of farmers have decided to reduce planting or not plant at all, but, according, to our PM, there's a demand issue. Then, on Saturday morning, the Prime Minister fronted the cameras with another rushed bill, a bill that wouldn't be needed if he had done his job to begin with. Our PM said, 'This bill helps Australia to be overprepared.' He used that word many times—overprepared. That was an absolute course correction for someone trying to cover up the fact that this government is completely underprepared. They are weeks if not years behind where they need to be. The Australian people deserve better than what the Labor government is selling.

Because of the left's obsession with carbon emissions—which, here in Australia, make up just one per cent of global contributions, by the way—everyday Australians are paying more at the browser and more on their electricity bills. Because of this Labor government and its obsession with green ideology, Australians are paying higher mortgages, spending more time at rammed hospitals and paying more at Coles and Woolworths as they provide for their families. The truth is that this government has blown the budget, regulated industry to extinction and sacrificed our sovereign security by locking away cheap and reliable power behind absurd and economically damaging climate mandates. Importing endless solar panels cannot fuel a road train. They cannot power our smelters, and they cannot make our fertiliser.

I pay respect to Senator Sterle's impassioned plea to remember the truck drivers—the small business that drives this nation. We hear you. That is why we called on the government to halve the fuel excise tax, and the government listened. But, still, the Prime Minister's latest homemade crisis is driving Australians into poverty and this bill, his bill, does nothing to immediately relieve the cost-of-living catastrophe he has orchestrated. This is an industrial relations powers bill that, remarkably, only addresses one current application that's sitting with the Fair Work Commission—just one. There's just one in there. This is his immediate response to the fuel crisis.

There's also no sunset clause to take these IR powers away from the minister once this crisis is behind us. This is not a temporary measure. There is no sunset clause. These IR powers are here to stay. This is the government's response. The PM has no real plan. He has no urgency, and he has provided no leadership. He needs to move the fuel to the servos. This bill has been introduced haphazardly and without the usual process and—typical Labor—avoids scrutiny. It comes as no surprise that this Labor government is trying to avoid scrutiny. We have independent analysis that has shown time and again that this is the most secretive government ever. They went to the election claiming integrity and transparency. This is completely and utterly a gross failing of the Australian people.

This bill was introduced to parliament on Thursday morning. Then the government, as it always does, chose to play politics and not debate its own bill. It's really important that those at home understand this. The government is rushing these laws to clean up its own mess and did not allow any opposition or crossbench MPs over in the other place to read the bill before voting on it. This is not a considered approach. This is not a democratic norm. This is not a respectful approach to the parliament and the citizens who own it, and it does not help everyday Australians deal with the fuel crisis. It does not rectify the very real decline in trust in our vibrant democracy. This bill gives extraordinary power to the minister to bypass Fair Work Commission's mandatory review period of road transport contractual chain orders. This is a very serious and significant change, one that requires proper scrutiny. That scrutiny has been denied.

There is no obvious reason why the parliament should be asked to truncate scrutiny on a permanent amendment to the Fair Work Act when ordinary mechanisms remain available and passage is still available this week. This bill is being rushed through parliament, and that should concern all of us. When laws are rushed through quickly, we lose transparency. We do not get clear answers about how the power would work in practice, when it would be used or what safeguards would be put in place. Parliament should never be asked to legislate first and ask questions later. Our job is to scrutinise laws properly, before they are passed not after the fact.

The government says this bill is needed because of an urgent fuel crisis, but if that is true then there is still time to follow the normal parliamentary process. There is time for proper debate, proper scrutiny and proper accountability. There would be measures beyond deals with unions and beyond permanent IR changes. Will this bill increase stockpiles? Will it move supply to where it's needed most? Will it provide relief? The answer to all of that is no. It's just an industrial power handed to the minister permanently. As they say, Labor does not let crises go to waste. The PM has no real plan but is making policy on the run and is using this crisis to strengthen IR powers.

PM Albanese has no real leadership in all of this. He needs to move the fuel to the servos. Again, I thank him for listening to our calls to slash the fuel tax. Halving the fuel excise will provide immediate cost-of-living relief to Australians suffering because of the policy decisions of this Albanese government. Axing the fuel tax will give the mums and dads of Australia some relief. It will give the truckers and the farmers of Australia real relief. The increased GST that Dr Chalmers is making off of this crisis would more than pay for this subsidy if combined with reducing tax benefits to EV buyers earning over $150,000.

Regular Australians need help, not just those in the top tax bracket looking to buy a luxury car in a cost-of-living crisis. Labor has become the party of giving to the wealthy and taking from the poor, and regular Australians are paying the price. We heard this morning from Senator Gallagher, who said, 'The Albanese government is taking steps to shore up supply.' I wonder if Senator Ayres now thinks she's a far-right extremist. I think that's a matter for them to sort out. But this is all we've heard for the past two weeks. When we call out the problems of not being able to get fuel, we are called far-right extremists. Tell that to all the good people of Australia who are scared and anxious right now.

The coalition is calling on the government to act now and to bring down fuel costs. I want to be very clear that we proposed the 50 per cent cut to the petrol tax on petrol and diesel for three months first. Under our policy, this would be matched by a 50 per cent reduction in the heavy-vehicle road user charge. That would mean the fuel tax would fall from 55.2c per litre to just over 26c per litre. This is real and immediate relief for families, businesses and transport operators who are struggling with rising costs. We have made it clear that we are willing to work with the government to find sensible offsets. This can be done in a way that protects the budget over the long term, that helps keep inflation down and that does not involve new taxes to cover the gap. This is a temporary and targeted measure. It is designed to ease cost-of-living pressures for Australians, who are paying the price for a fuel crisis that Labor has failed to act on.

Australians have already endured almost four years of Labor driven inflation, and now they are facing even higher prices because of a fuel crisis the government denied existed and failed to prepare for. People need help now. This Liberal and National proposal delivers that help quickly, responsibly and fairly. Instead, this Labor PM has no plan and no urgency and has provided no leadership. Minister Bowen is spending upwards of $200,000, flying on holidays throughout the Pacific on UN business, while charging Australian taxpayers for the privilege. It is no wonder that we are in this current crisis. Inaction and ineptitude will be the legacy of this Labor government.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 1.30—I'm terribly sorry to interrupt you, but you'll be in continuation—we'll move to two-minute statements.