Before Mr Albanese was elected Prime Minister, The Nationals warned it ‘won’t be easy under Albanese’ and on Wednesday, April 1st 2026 he admitted to a national televised audience ‘the months ahead may not be easy’.  We in The Nationals knew, as a party of government, that Mr Albanese wasn’t up to the job.  

On 31 March 2022 during the pandemic, then Opposition Leader Albanese told Parliament: “We must be prepared for the uncertainty that global events unleash here at home. We must be more self-reliant … and at a time when petrol prices are on everyone's minds, we need a government with a real plan to ensure supply - using Australian flag vessels with Australian seafarers in a strategic fleet and a fuel reserve that's accessible.”  He has been Prime Minister for almost 4 years since then.

Mr Albanese has failed the leadership test.  His government is reactive, not proactive.  

For example, for 4 years Labor did not call out antisemitism and Islamic extremism.  After the horror of Bondi in December, the PM resisted the Coalition’s calls for a Royal Commission, then relented claiming he had supported it all along.

This practice of trying to use power to rewrite the truth is known as ‘gaslighting’ and I, and my colleagues in The Nationals and Coalition, are calling the Prime Minister and Energy Minister out for it every time it happens.

In Question Time the Prime Minister keeps looking across the dispatch box to the Coalition for answers, because he has none - only complaints and accusations that ring ever hollow the more years of terrible government he leads.

The Nationals secured a significant win to ease cost-of-living pain when we embarrassed the Prime Minister into providing fuel price relief at the bowser. We proposed halving the fuel excise for 3 months – delivering 26.3 cents per litre relief at the bowser, saving most drivers around $20 on a tank of fuel. The Government had opposed excise relief, then agreed to this Coalition proposal within days.

The Nationals also called on the government to slash the Road User Charge for heavy vehicle operators.  The Government has halted the ‘RUC’ for 3 months, providing 32.4 cents per litre further relief for trucking companies and – I hope – preventing price hikes at supermarkets.

The Nationals responsibly put forward offsets to ensure bowser relief does not further increase Labor’s rampant inflation. Labor have not put forward any offsets. The Nationals’ offsets include ending Commonwealth subsidies on electric cars and ‘green hydrogen’, and reining in the Home Battery Scheme.  

There has been a very low uptake of the Home Battery Scheme in Mallee, while you – the taxpayer – subsidised lower power bills for wealthy households in the leafy suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne.

Green hydrogen is a ‘net zero’ 2050 pipedream compounding Australian’s 2026 fuel nightmare. It is crazy that we have at least 34 billion barrels of oil reserves, yet liquid fuels make up 60 per cent of the total volume of all imports into Australia.  

Remember, as I quoted above, the Prime Minister’s promise to have a ‘fuel reserve that’s accessible’.  Four years after Mr Albanese promised fuel reserves, Australian oil remains in the ground or at sea in the Bight and we are more exposed and reliant to imports than ever before.

For four years Mr Albanese has thrown around slogans like ‘nobody held back, nobody left behind’, then holds back and leaves behind regional Australians at every chance he gets.

The Albanese Labor Government are focused on themselves and growing their political power.  

The Coalition belled the cat in Canberra on Labor’s crazy plan to expand the number of MPs in parliament. Labor are tone deaf to Australians being bled dry by their government and now at the bowser.

I, and my colleagues in The Nationals, are very focused on you, on regional people, communities and economies.  One half of Australia’s energy demand is liquid fuels, and 70 per cent of diesel and petroleum use is by the freight, aviation, mining, agriculture, manufacturing and construction sectors.  

As a party of Government, The Coalition knows what works, how to contain inflation and keep Australia moving.

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