QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator McKIM (Tasmania—Australian Greens Whip) (15:22): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to fuel. It doesn't matter whether you're picking the kids up from school or you're at a backyard barbecue, a place of worship or down the pub or having a chat with your mates over the back fence, the No. 1 topic of conversation in this country right now is the price and availability of fuel.
Of course, that is caused by the war that Labor said and still says was a good idea and a war that is supported by Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation in this place. When there is a crisis like that, when there's an absolute barbecue-stopper of a conversation, Australians expect that government will be open and honest and transparent about what actions it is taking and how and why it is trying to address the issue.
To be fair to the government, they have done some things to address the issue, and we heard about those today from Minister Wong and others. But what the government is not doing is stopping petrol companies from price gouging, and that is because there are no provisions in Australia's consumer law or anywhere else on the statute books to prevent corporate price gouging in Australia except for the very narrowly scoped provisions that relate specifically to supermarkets, which Labor brought in last year after sustained pressure and a campaign from the Greens on supermarket pricing.
So let's be very clear about this: when the government claims—as Minister Ayres did in this place yesterday, as Minister Wong did in this place today, as Treasurer Chalmers has done in other places today—that the government is cracking down on fuel company price gouging, that is gaslighting the Australian people. That is engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct.
At the moment, Labor's war has driven up petrol prices. The fossil fuel corporations are making out like a bandit, the Australian people are getting absolutely priced gouged at the petrol pump, and the government are doing nothing to stop that price gouging from occurring. Even worse, they're gaslighting people and misleading them and trying to convince them they are doing something to crack down on petrol company price gouging.
That is absolutely not the case, and the government should be honest with the Australian people about what it is doing and what it is not doing. We've heard a lot today from Labor about the war—'the conflict' as it is now apparently in the speaking points—in the Middle East. The Labor leader, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, came out and said he thought the war was a great idea, when it started.
He was first out of the block on the global stage, cheerleading this illegal war. To listen to Labor today, you would think that Iran just got out of bed one morning, had a bit of a stretch and decided it would be a good idea to bomb some petrochemical facilities. That is not what happened.
What actually happened is that the US and Israel started bombing Iran. That's what started this war. Iran's actions are a retaliation, not a provocation.
The provocation was from the US and Israel, and it was cheerled by Labor here in Australia when Prime Minister Albanese was one of the first local leaders to go out publicly and say he thought this war was a terrific idea. How's it going now? Thousands of people are dead.
At least tens of thousands are injured, and millions are displaced from their homes. People are cowering in fear as the bombs rain down around them. Domestically, the economy is facing a potential black swan event, and people are getting smashed even harder than they already were.
How's your war going now? (Time expired) Question agreed to.