Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

Today we have witnessed again a government who has no answers to the problems of rising fuel prices around Australia. Increasing fuel costs are tearing at the heart of the budgets of Australian families from Western Australia to Victoria to Queensland, and from city to country. Rising petrol prices are tearing at the capacity of Australian farmers, Australian families and Australian businesses to balance their budgets. Rising fuel prices mean that families have to go without essential items in their daily lives so that they can meet their transport needs. Today we have been told by the Minister for Resources and Energy that it is just a little problem—not something we should be all that worried about.

The Treasurer told us earlier this week in question time that the people are happy with what the government is doing, and the Prime Minister has well and truly given up by saying, ‘We have done all we can.’ Here is a government faced with rising petrol prices, which made pre-election commitments to put downward pressure on the price of fuel. The price of fuel continues to go up and up and this government has no answers. It says it is only a little problem, the people are happy and, ‘We have done all we can.’ That is not a good enough response. There is an instant thing that the government could do. It could lower the excise rate. That is entirely within its capacity. A 5c reduction in the price of fuel would flow immediately from a 5c reduction in the excise rate. In fact, it would be more than that because there is some GST on top of the excise—it would be about 5.5c a litre. That is immediate, practical, permanent help. It would flow through into lower prices and better opportunities for Australian families to balance their budgets. It is something that is easy to do and worth doing.

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