Source : the age
Question time is due to start at 2pm AEDT today.
As regular readers will know, QT was delayed yesterday due to a historic address to both houses by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Watch QT live below.
Australia has enough fuel and stocks are arriving on time, Aged Care Minister Sam Rae has said, after being asked about seniors community transport services being cancelled in regional areas because of the cost of fuel.
Nationals MP Kevin Hogan asked: “In my electorate of Page, community transport providers are warning that without urgent fuel cost support, they will have to reduce services to more than 2000 vulnerable people. What is the minister’s plan to ensure recent rising fuel costs do not result in the loss of these essential services?”
Rae responded: “As the Minister for Climate Change and Energy has confirmed, Australia is fuel secure. Petrol companies have advised us that fuel stocks continue to arrive on time and in the quantities expected now, we continue to closely monitor the impact of prices on aged care providers”.
The minister said there were existing supports available to protect the transport services, which he said were “very important services to older people”.
Following a dramatic expulsion from the chamber, we’ve had a moment of comedy, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese launched an attack on the Coalition and One Nation, as he referenced an absent Barnaby Joyce.
“Those opposite used to say that they supported free trade. They used to do that, but they’ve just gone backwards,” Albanese said.
“They’re so spooked by the one guy [Joyce] who hasn’t even bothered to turn up today … that they’re adopting their policies and just trying to be One Nation-lite when it comes to trade and trade issues.”
As Albanese finished the sentence, Joyce re-entered the chamber, wagging his finger at the prime minister to jeers from the government benches.
Joyce called out to the prime minister that while he may not have been in the chamber, he was watching the proceedings on one of the television’s just outside the doors.
“For that tail to wag the dog, Mr Speaker, [Joyce] doesn’t even have to be in the room,” Albanese said.
We’ve just had quite a dramatic ejection from the House of Representatives during question time.
It began with a question to Energy Minister Chris Bowen from Liberal MP Mary Aldred. The question was about NSW Premier Chris Minns asking for national leadership on fuel management.
Bowen rose and began responding by saying: “I thank the honorable member for the question, and I thank her for accurately quoting the premier of NSW, which is a big step forward on yesterday.”
The minister then went on to accuse Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh of having “completely misquoted and misrepresented” Minns during question time yesterday – when she omitted a word from a quote about fuel management – that Bowen said changed the meaning of the premier’s comments.
It’s not hard to pick apart the Coalition’s primary tactic this week when it grills the government on the unfolding fuel crisis.
The Liberal and National parties have been using question time to attack Energy Minister Chris Bowen on fuel shortages, shipments and the government’s response to the unfolding crisis.
Coalition frontbenchers have also done the media rounds, increasingly stating that Bowen is not the right minister to tackle the issue head on.
During the course of many of Bowen’s responses to Coalition questions in the House of Representatives, shadow ministers have raised points of order against Bowen.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stood by his government’s efforts to curb problem gambling, after being asked about the issue for the second day in a row during question time.
“Australia led the world with cigarette plain packaging laws. We also led the world with the social media ban. But Australia is also the world leader in gambling harm, with the highest per capita gambling losses in the world,” independent MP Nicolette Boele said at the start of her question.
“Plain packaging, the social media ban: Labor governments have shown us that they can get these hard but important things done. Prime minister, gambling harm is killing people. When will you finally take real action and keep Australians safe?”
Energy Minister Chris Bowen is giving parliament an update on the latest fuel shortages as the Coalition continues to push the government on the lack of access to petrol at service stations around the country.
Bowen said 187 stations had no diesel in NSW, and 32 had no stock.
“That’s down 19 on yesterday,” Bowen said. “That’s out of a total of 2417 service stations in NSW.”
He said 55 service stations had no diesel in Queensland, and 35 had no regular unleaded, the same as yesterday.
“In Victoria, 134 with a lack of one or more grades. That’s down 28 on the last report,” he said.
Question time is due to start at 2pm AEDT today.
As regular readers will know, QT was delayed yesterday due to a historic address to both houses by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Watch QT live below.
Thanks for reading our live coverage of the latest inflation figures and other goings-on at Parliament House, Canberra.
Question time is due to start at 2pm.
If you’re just joining us, here’s what you need to know:
- Treasurer Jim Chalmers says treasury modelling to plan for rising oil prices now seems conservative.
Chalmers told reporters at Parliament House that “more challenging circumstances” than $120 a barrel were now being modelled.
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The government has also once again ruled out cutting the fuel excise to provide motorists some relief at the bowser.
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Chalmers’ press conference came after the latest inflation figures were released. Those numbers – from February – showed inflation was starting to stabilise before the outbreak of the war in Iran, with figures barely budging throughout that month.
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Energy Minister Chris Bowen has accused the Coalition of harvesting people’s data to disseminate “political propaganda” through a website created to allow motorists to report fuel shortages in their area. In turn, the Coalition has attacked Bowen’s leadership and said he is “in over his head”.
- And opposition communications spokesperson Sarah Henderson has called the ABC strike an “absolute disgrace” and a danger to emergency services reporting, despite her support of the media union and workers’ right to advocate for their needs.
Industry Minister Tim Ayres has defended the government’s latest bailout of Rio Tinto’s Queensland aluminium smelter, worth $2 billion, announced this morning.
Asked whether persistent handouts to ailing smelters was sustainable, Ayres said the Albanese government’s interventions around the country had preserved tens of thousands of jobs and protected Australian industry.
“I think we’ve demonstrated real discipline in our approach. And I do think that that decision to intervene in central Queensland, while it delivers thousands and thousands of jobs, [it] delivers economic security for that region, connects that industrial region with the Australian economy,” he told the Press Club.
The Coalition has continued its attack on Energy Minister Chris Bowen, as it attempts to paint Labor frontbenchers as responsible for fuel shortages across the country.
Speaking to journalists at Parliament House earlier today, deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume asked: “Where is the plan to deal with [the crisis]? Simply deferring the problem to a national tsar who is yet to come out with a distribution and supply plan, is Chris Bowen abdicating his responsibilities.
“He’s clearly a minister in over his head. We need to hear more from the government to give Australians the confidence and certainty that they need, to make sure that our economy can keep ticking over throughout the troubles in the Middle East.”
Hume maintained that the Coalition’s position of blaming the government was fair, despite the global nature of the issue, saying: “I think it’s quite fair and reasonable to say that the government’s responsibility is to have a plan to deal with the issue.”
She then went on to say:
This is not a government that is in control of the situation. Something different seems to happen every day. Now we’re getting these daily updates from premiers around the country about where those fuel shortages are, just how many petrol stations and bowsers are affected by these shortages. This doesn’t sound like a government that is in control.”
