STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia—Deputy President and Chair of Committees) (13:41): Australia runs on diesel, whether it's our farmers, our mining industries or our transport operators, and that's exactly why Labor and the Greens need to keep their hands off our fuel tax credits. There's a lot of misinformation out there. Fuel tax credits are not a subsidy; they're a refund of tax paid by businesses that use fuel away from public roads.

If you're a farmer harvesting crops, a miner operating heavy equipment, a construction business building vital infrastructure or a commercial fisher out on the water, you are not using the public road network and you shouldn't be paying a road user tax. It's simply a principle of fairness. These credits help keep Australian industries competitive.

They support thousands of regional jobs and hold down the cost of things that we rely on every day: our food, our homes, our resources and our exports. If these credits were abolished or capped, the costs wouldn't disappear; they'd simply be passed on to Australian families through higher grocery prices, more expensive construction, increased transport costs and reduced investment in regional Australia.

This isn't just about one industry. It's about the farmers who feed us, the miners who power our economy; the manufacturers who keep Australia producing; the tourism operators, the fishers, the transport operators and the construction workers who keep our country moving. If you believe in supporting regional Australia, protecting Australian jobs and keeping the cost of living down, you need to send a strong message to Chris Bowen and this bad Albanese government: hands off our fuel!