Treasury Laws Amendment (Fuel Excise Relief No. 2) Bill 2026

Ms PENFOLD (Lyne) (13:21): I support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Fuel Excise Relief No. 2) Bill 2026 and will not stand in the way of Australians receiving relief at the bowser. Families, farmers, truck drivers, tradies, commuters and small businesses across Australia need the assistance. But support for this bill should not be mistaken for support for the circumstances that made it necessary, because the question before us today is not simply on why fuel prices have risen.

The real question is about why Australians are finding it so difficult to absorb yet another increase in the cost of living. Why are families living week to week? Why are small businesses struggling to stay afloat?

Why are farmers, transport operators, businesses and community organisations being forced to make increasingly difficult decisions? Why do so many Australians feel that, despite working harder than ever, they are somehow falling behind? Across Lyne, I hear the same message repeatedly.

People are hurting and they are hurting badly. I've never seen Australians under this level of sustained economic pressure. The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us headline inflation remains at 4.2 per cent.

Underlying inflation remains at 3.4 per cent, still above the Reserve Bank's target range. Housing costs have risen by 6.3 per cent, transport costs have risen by 6.6 per cent and electricity prices have risen by more than 22 per cent. These are not just statistics; they are the reality facing Australian households every day.

Families are paying more for groceries, more for electricity, more for insurance, more for rent, more for mortgages, more for housing and more for almost every essential part of daily life. Now, they're paying more for fuel. The conflict in the Middle East did not create Australia's cost-of-living crisis; it exposed it.

Australians were already struggling before oil prices moved. Mortgage holders had already endured years of elevated interest rates. Businesses were already battling rising costs.

Households were already making sacrifices. Fuel has simply become the latest pressure point in an economy already under strain. Fuel is not just another expense.

Fuel is the cost of everything. When fuel prices rise, freight costs rise. When freight costs rise, food prices rise.

When food prices rise, household budgets come under further pressure. The impact flows through every corner of the economy. Nowhere is that more obvious than in regional Australia.

Over recent months, I've heard directly from constituents who've been living with this reality. Gregory from Foster asked me, 'How does the government allow fuel companies to gouge the price of fuel so quickly?' He was not asking as an economist; he was asking as somebody watching costs rise faster than he could understand or explain. Veronica from Mitchells Island, questioned why families already struggling with the cost of living were expected to absorb even higher fuel costs.

Mark from Foster raised concerns about fuel prices rising before higher-cost fuel had even entered the supply chain. Karen from Taree South told me she watched fuel prices rise from 165.9 cents per litre to 219.9 cents per litre in a matter of days. For many Australians, that sort of increase is not an inconvenience—it is the difference between making ends meet and falling behind.

Bill from Tallwoods Village told me he felt nobody was listening when concerns were raised about rapidly escalating fuel prices. Whether people agree with every concern or not, the message is consistent: Australians feel powerless as costs rise around them. But this goes beyond motorists.

I've heard from timber operators, transport operators and farmers across my electorate facing soaring diesel costs. I've heard concerns from community transport providers questioning whether they can continue operating if costs continue to rise. These are not theoretical concerns.

These are real Australians trying to run businesses, support families and contribute to their communities—certainly, a community that's the oldest in the country. It's not only households carrying these pressures. Small businesses are carrying them as well—the local cafe, the local workshop, the trucking operator, the family owned business, the farmer employing local people.

The consequences are increasingly visible. ASIC reports that 14,722 Australian companies entered external administration during the last financial year. That is an increase of more than 33 per cent on the previous year.

Behind every one of those insolvencies is somebody's life's work, somebody's savings, somebody's employees, somebody's family. That is why inflation matters and that is why fuel prices matter. That is why governments cannot continue treating cost-of-living pressures as though they are merely temporary inconveniences.

I said, previously in this House, that we stand in here expecting Australians to flex with the crisis, but so many do not have that flexibility. Every ask we make of them is heard as another sacrifice they have to make—another bill, another cost, another burden, another promise that somehow never quite gets delivered. And, after years of inflation and rising costs, many Australians have reached the limit of what they can absorb.

The bill before us extends temporary fuel excise relief from 1 July until early August, and Australians will welcome that relief. The coalition supports that relief, but relief should not be confused with a solution. The government calls this a taper.

Australians will experience it as a price increase. A family filling a 65 litre tank received around $21 in fuel relief during June. From 1 July that relief falls to around $11.

That is, effectively, a $10 increase every time they fill up their car from the first day of the new financial year. For transport operators and trucking businesses, the impact is even greater. That is why Australians are entitled to ask a simple question: if inflation is supposedly under control, why are they still paying more?

If the economy is supposedly improving, why do they still feel poorer? The answer is that the underlying problems remain. The original fuel excise reduction cost approximately $2.9 billion.

This extension costs another $400 million, yet the government has refused to identify genuine inflationary offsets. The coalition repeatedly argued that any cost-of-living relief should be accompanied by spending restraint elsewhere, because relief that is borrowed today becomes inflationary pressure tomorrow. A government credit card is not an economic strategy.

Borrowing more money to treat the symptoms while ignoring the causes is not economic management; it is political management. The same lack of long-term thinking that has contributed to inflation has also left Australia vulnerable on fuel security. Over recent months I have repeatedly raised concerns in this parliament about Australia's fuel vulnerability.

I've spoken about diesel fuel disruptions. I've spoken about pressure on regional fuel distributors. I've spoken about my concerns that the ACCC does not appear to have a grip on the fuel supply chain at all.

I've spoken about the resilience of Australia's fuel supply chain because fuel security is not simply about what motorists pay at the bowser. Fuel security is about whether food reaches supermarket shelves. Fuel security is about whether freight continues to move.

Fuel security is about whether farmers can harvest crops. Fuel security is about whether emergency services can respond during natural disasters. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Chesters ): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43.

The debate may resume at a later hour. The member will be given leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.