QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (15:33): I refer the honourable gentleman to my answer yesterday in which I confirmed to the House the great revelation that the energy ministers had met last Friday and issued a communique, which is not a secret document. For the benefit of honourable members opposite, the communique reads, in part: Ministers agreed that there are shared responsibilities and it will be critical to work together to maintain fuel security by anticipating risks and enabling timely, coordinated responses.
Ministers tasked Senior Officials to regularly report on fuel security and potential responses. Ministers will continue to monitor fuel supplies and work together to respond as the situation evolves. A communique!
The SPEAKER: Resume your seat for a moment, Manager. The question was about a media report; the member for Grey asked about whether requests had been made to lead to fuel-rationing plans. The minister was directly answering that part of the question, when he was on his feet, about what the ministers had discussed and what the requests, I assume, were that led to that.
That is pretty directly relevant, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. In this case, I'm going to endorse what the minister is saying, because he is being directly relevant about the question he was asked. Manager, on a point of order?
Mr Tehan: Just on your statement there, the question was really specific, and this is really important. It goes to a significant national issue— Government members interjecting— Mr Tehan: about a fuel-rationing plan. The minister isn't addressing that.
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the House. Mr Burke: To the point of order, almost every time a point of order is taken by those opposite—particularly the Manager of Opposition Business—on direct relevance, they then pretend that a whole lot of the words of the question were not there. The start of this question referred to an article on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald.
I've just had a look at the full contents of that article. It goes through a broad range of issues. It refers at length to the Prime Minister's speech last night.
If you're going to have those words in the question, then they become part of direct relevance in the answer. The SPEAKER: Yes. I've given the Manager a good go.
Can you just resume your seat. We heard from you. Mr Tehan interjecting— The SPEAKER: No, resume your seat.
Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER: Yes, I understand that, but common sense would prevail. If a member is asking about an article, you don't just refer to the title of the article; it's about the article itself. But we're not getting into the semantics here.
We just want to make sure that the minister is being directly relevant about the issue of fuel rationing that he was asked about as part of the article that he was asked about. Mr BOWEN: As I've previously said in the House as well, the Commonwealth and the states are working together off the frame of the National Liquid Fuel Emergency Response Plan, which is a document that's existed under governments of all persuasions for the last 20 years.
Just as in COVID, where the Morrison government worked with states, the Albanese government is working with states on contingency planning on all the measures. The difference now is that, during COVID, the Morrison government had an opposition which was constructive. The Morrison government had an opposition which made policy suggestions, which gave support to controversial measures when it didn't have to.
I was shadow minister. I remember Labor Party members complaining to me: 'You're being too soft on the Morrison government. You shouldn't give them that much support.' I said: 'That would not be good for the country.
That would not be good for Australia.' But the Taylor opposition sees an international crisis as a political-point-scoring opportunity, not an opportunity to be the adults in the room. I suspect the Australian people will have views about that performance.