Mr HAMILTON (Groom) (16:04): I'm very happy to rise to speak on the government's failure to manage fuel supply, amongst a great many other things. During question time today, we saw the minister asked multiple times if he could identify the regions in Australia, the areas in Australia, the cities in Australia, where we were experiencing fuel supply shortages, and he couldn't answer the question. He wasn't across his brief. He couldn't tell us where those were. He turned around briefly, to his backbench, looking for a bit of help. Someone shouted out, 'Mildura.' He said, 'Mildura.' So we got one answer out of him. As it turned out, under questioning from the member for Lindsay, there were fuel supply shortages in Western Sydney, right near the minister's own seat. But he wasn't aware; he's not across the brief. This is a minister who wants to be president of COP. He wants to focus on those big, fantastic things that a role like that brings. He can focus on international commitments. He can play on the grand stage, but he's not on the ground in Australia, seeing the problems that we're seeing, and this matters. What we heard today was a minister who's taking a completely hands-off approach to dealing with this issue. In fact, he was playing the role of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather: 'Tell me what to do. What do I do, Godfather?' He wants to know how to do the job. The great thing is we had a wonderful contribution from the member for Wright, a transport professional, who actually spoke to the details of the issue. They've been very helpful. The minister could look back just a short way in history to see what to do, back to 2021 when we had an AdBlue shortage around Australia. A very similar thing happened. It wasn't available anywhere. People were hoarding. Prices went up. What did we do? Did we stand back and say, 'We're going to take a hands-off approach to this, and Australians are the problem?' An honourable member interjecting— Mr HAMILTON: You're going to have a roundtable? No, we didn't. What we did was we reached out to the ACCC, and we identified that, in the Competition and Consumer Act, there was the ability for the ACCC to relax some of the rules, to allow those fuel suppliers to work together to make sure that we had AdBlue in the regions where we needed them. That's what we did. Mr Rob Mitchell interjecting— Mr HAMILTON: I hear interjections, and it's so cool because back then do you know who supported it? The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): Enough of the interjections, Member for McEwen, or you will leave the chamber. Mr HAMILTON: Do you know who did support the actions that the coalition government took in that period? Labor supported them. They said they were very sensible. That's what you should do in a situation like this. That's exactly what you should do. But now we hear, no, they're not going to do it. And it gets worse than that. Since that time, we now have the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Act in full effect, and that gives the minister up-to-date data on exactly the fuel stock levels right across the country. He can look into each city; he can look into each street and see where the fuel is and where the constraints are. He could work with the ACCC—as we did in 2021, during his time—to work with the distributors to get that done and to smooth it out so that we don't see what we're seeing right now, which is fuel bowsers with little signs saying: 'No fuel. Closed.' Whole petrol stations are closed off and whole distributors. We saw United Petroleum saying they're going to have to shut down for a while, and that's playing out because we have an uneven distribution, which the minister has the ability to do something about. Instead, we heard today, through multiple questions, that the minister has a very different approach to what the coalition took when we had a similar problem. The minister's approach is hands off: 'I'm not going to do anything. This is Australia's fault.' Quite frankly, some of the minister's responses that we heard today beggar belief. He was trying to tell us that there is no fuel supply issue in Australia. To Australians out there who are driving past a closed petrol station, to Australians who can't get their fuel supply: the minister is telling you that's not real, that you're not seeing it. We shouldn't be surprised: this is the minister who told us we were going to get a $275 reduction in our energy bills. That didn't happen either. His connection with reality is tenuous at best, and we're seeing it play out to the detriment of Australians right across the country. This matters in a role like the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. The numbers matter. You have to be across the numbers. You have to know what's going on in your portfolio. Today, it was very clear. There are fuel supply issues right across Australia, with a number of major regional cities experiencing them. The minister is not aware of it, he's not across it, and he intends to do absolutely nothing about it. That is an absolute shame for every Australian who's struggling with higher fuel costs right now.