MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator LIDDLE (South Australia) (16:32): The pumps are not flowing, nor are the answers from the Albanese Labor government. Labor has not been upfront with Australians. The economy is weak.
Fuel is a problem. Australians are trying to work through this uncertainty. Motorists and those who need transport—rural and regional communities, farmers, livestock producers and truck drivers—are not to blame for Labor's failure to plan or respond.
In my home state, where the population is centralised in Adelaide, locals are watching their costs spiral to $3 a litre, more than double than what it was a month ago. The federal government has had and does have levers at its disposal, not just to have a plan for this but also to respond, yet Australians have to wait for answers. Labor has been slow to see the problem.
Labor has been slow to act on the problem. Labor has been slow at just about everything, and there's no sign that's changing. In true reflections, Livestock SA in direct contact with producers across the state is reporting delays and disruption, and guess what?
They're not making it up. Fuel is a huge issue for bulk fuel deliveries for members, putting livestock, crops and livelihoods at risk. For a truck driver from Ceduna, the weekly fuel bill has gone from $14,000 to $21,000.
That's for a single truck. A primary producer ordered 25,000 litres but received just 16,000 litres. That's not just an inconvenience.
That means more trucks on the road, more transport costs, more administration for them, more in the cities, more drive-bys and more security issues for those who are holding that fuel. Producers can't wait for Canberra to catch up. Fractured supply chains are putting livelihoods at risk, as if South Australia isn't experiencing enough.
They've had record business insolvencies. Enter stage left to this circus, energy minister Chris Bowen and Labor MPs, who are still telling Australians there is no problem. In South Australia today, there are 49 fuel stations with supply issues.
Amid a backdrop of high inflation, high interest rates and the national debt racing towards $1 trillion, this country was already in trouble. Our economy must truly be on life support now. After almost four years in government and with all those resources, Labor chooses to blame the Australian people for buying too much, instead of blaming itself.
There were claims too from the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil, that there is more fuel circulating in Australia than before the Middle East conflict. Surely Australians think this is farcical—no, they know it is farcical, given the reality they are living with right now. A fuel taskforce won't likely fix this, and Labor's own history should tell it that is so.
Remember the failed stunt from former prime minister Kevin Rudd, under the advice of then minister Bowen, to appoint an independent fuel tsar? It was a move that did nothing to reduce prices and was another example of a Chris Bowen idea that has badly backfired. What Australia doesn't need is a part-time energy minister asleep at the wheel.
If there is anxiety out there it's because the public don't believe it when Labor says there is no national fuel crisis, and they also don't trust Labor's ability to fix it. The government has the regulatory powers, the capacity to investigate and the platform to communicate clearly with an anxious public, and it should rule out fuel rationing. No answer, Labor, is not an answer.
While Australians live with inflation and the price of everything going up and are tightening household budgets, guess what Labor is doing? It's spending more and it's distracted by planning how to put more politicians in this place. In government, the coalition provided targeted relief in moments of crisis.
Labor's response is to retreat, ridicule and blame. The government is listening to nobody but its own echo chamber. On Monday the International Energy Agency told the government that 'the world is facing the greatest global energy security threat'.
On Tuesday, the President of the European Commission told a joint sitting of parliament that 'the threat to our supply chain security and the shock to our industrial base need urgent responses' and that this is 'another reminder that building our resilience is today's job'. I also have a message for those relevant ministers who think it's all okay out there. Australians do matter, and their experiences are real.
Your response is woeful. South Australians' must be heard, and their voices in this crisis do matter. It matters to me, it matters to them, it matters to people trying to get appointments, it matters to people trying to get their animals to veterinarians—it matters in every single situation.
There's no-one not affected.