Shadow Portfolio — 26 March 2026

The Manager of Opposition Business, Mr Tehan, ran a sustained, multi-stage parliamentary offensive on 26 March 2026 centred on the national fuel crisis — using procedural motions, bill debate, and Question Time in sequence to prosecute a single coherent attack on government inaction.

The day opened with Mr Tehan moving to suspend standing and sessional orders to bring the Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Bill 2026 immediately before the House, with debate capped at five minutes per speech and all questions to be concluded by 1 pm [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s006]. The motion was framed as an act of bipartisanship: Mr Tehan cited the government's own stated desire over the preceding two weeks to pass the bill quickly, and offered the Opposition's cooperation if the government acted decisively on fuel [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s012].

The government's response — attaching a second bill introduced to parliament that same morning to the Opposition's motion — became the Opposition's next line of attack. Mr Tehan characterised this as procedural gamesmanship that prevented proper scrutiny and prioritised political tactics over substantive action during a fuel emergency [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s012].

In the bill debate itself, the Opposition's substantive case rested on two pillars. First, that the ACCC enforcement bill is straightforward — increasing penalty levels — and deserves to be examined on its own merits rather than bundled with untested legislation introduced the same morning. Second, that stronger ACCC powers are urgently needed to deter price-gouging and fuel hoarding as Middle East conflict impacts on energy infrastructure drive diesel to $3.20 per litre and petrol to $2.60 [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s012].

The Opposition explicitly linked these price levels to downstream cost-of-living pressure across food and transport for Australian households.

Later in Question Time, Mr Tehan directed attention to supply rather than price alone, asking the Minister for Climate Change and Energy how many Australian service stations were currently without fuel and whether the minister would commit to releasing daily public updates identifying individual stations that had run out [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s132]. The question operationalises the Opposition's broader transparency demand: by seeking station-by-station disclosure, Mr Tehan placed the government on notice that aggregate assurances are insufficient.

Earlier in the day, Mr Tehan had stated that Australians were scared by fuel prices and service-station availability and that the Prime Minister needed to demonstrate national leadership rather than negativity on the crisis [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s065].

Taken together, the day's activity reflects a tightly coordinated strategy: use a procedural motion to force the government's hand on a bill it had itself endorsed; use the government's tactical response to that motion as evidence of bad faith; use the bill debate to anchor the enforcement argument in cost-of-living terms voters understand; and use Question Time to demand operational transparency the government has not volunteered.

Each intervention reinforces the others, and the cumulative portrait the Opposition is constructing is of a government that talks about acting on fuel costs while choosing procedure over people.