QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (14:50): They don't need any help in looking irrelevant right now, Senator Roberts. Even if we were wanting to help them, they're doing a pretty good job on their own.

In relation to fuel excise, we did have a temporary relaxing of or halving of the fuel excise to help when the conflict in the Middle East had such a significant impact on petrol prices. That has come down quite a bit, but we think it is sensible to continue it at a lower level for a shorter period of time to help households adjust. At the same time, we continue to roll out all our cost-of-living help, whether it be tax cuts, whether it be our tripling of the bulk-billing rate or our lowering of the price of medicines.

All of these areas are targeted to make sure that people can deal with some of those household pressures that we know they have to manage. What they know is that this government works 24 hours a day, seven days a week to work through all of the ways that we can help households with those cost-of-living pressures, and we will continue to do so.