Portfolio — 24 March 2026

The Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, used Question Time on 24 March to announce new legislation doubling maximum penalties for false or misleading conduct and cartel behaviour in the fuel sector to $100 million per offence [TA-260324-house-a9c2a02c99ed:s100]. The bill is framed as a direct consumer protection measure against petrol companies potentially exploiting cost-of-living pressures flowing from the Middle East conflict.

Dr Chalmers presented the government's fuel affordability response as multi-channel: supporting domestic refineries, boosting supply, engaging international partners, and expanding the ACCC's enforcement reach [TA-260324-house-a9c2a02c99ed:s100]. He anchored the new bill in prior legislative action, pointing to amendments to the Minimum Stockholding Obligation and new information-gathering powers over diesel exhaust fluid and technical grade urea passed late in 2025.

The parliamentary exchange carried a sharp partisan edge. Dr Chalmers noted the Opposition voted against that earlier fuel security legislation and called on them to support the new penalties bill [TA-260324-house-a9c2a02c99ed:s093]. He declined to embrace fuel excise reduction as a relief mechanism, instead cataloguing existing government measures — tax cuts, superannuation increases for lower earners, student debt relief, cheaper medicines, expanded bulk-billing, and PBS co-payment reductions — as the government's cost-of-living response [TA-260324-house-a9c2a02c99ed:s109].

The Treasurer's positioning places the burden of action squarely on the Opposition while defending a broad cost-of-living package as preferable to a single excise lever.