Fuel excise
Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:14): My question is for the Minister for Small Business. Minister, on 28 September the federal government will remove the 22-cents-per-litre fuel excise concession. This will force up the price of petrol and diesel for Victorian small businesses and of course struggling Victorian families, and this will feed through into further increases in costs in an environment where small businesses face real inflationary pressures and impacts on their costs and competitiveness. I therefore ask: will you intervene and advocate to the commonwealth government, specifically your small business compatriot Julie Collins, to retain the 22-cents-per-litre excise concession for a further 12 months?
Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Resources) (12:15): Mr Davis is having a pretty ordinary week. Senator Collins is not the federal Treasurer. Mr Davis should know that. This is a person who is presenting himself to the Victorian people in a short number of weeks as the alternative Treasurer for Victoria. Fuel excise is clearly a matter for the federal government. The fuel excise arrangements that the former federal government put in place and any decisions about whether there would be any arrangements made to change the decision of Mr Frydenberg and Mr Morrison about when this ends are a matter for the federal Parliament, and Mr Davis knows that. Really, if you could pay just the tiniest bit of regard to the responsibilities in my portfolio, of which there are plenty—we have got 640 000 small businesses in Victoria—would it kill you to look at the general order and try and ascertain even just a tiny bit of what I am responsible for? You are making a massive fool of yourself, and you are doing a disservice to all Victorian small businesses by the way that you treat my portfolio consistently like some kind of joke. I do not; I take it very seriously. I work day and night to support Victorian small businesses in all sorts of different ways. We opened a new program to support struggling small businesses as recently as Monday. We have a number of others running. Why don’t you ask me about one of those?
Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:16): I think that means no, she will not even advocate and she will not even speak on behalf of small businesses. The fact is that this is a big impact on many small businesses. You go and talk to a few, and they will actually make that point. For many small businesses these transport costs are very large input costs, so I simply ask: will you join us in advocating to the federal government for a better outcome on this?
Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Resources) (12:17): Mr Davis, where were you when Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg set these dates in the last federal budget? And where are you ever advocating for small businesses? In the 2½ years that I have held this portfolio your best effort has been ‘Will you meet with?’. You are a disgrace. You are an embarrassment to this place. You are an embarrassment to your show. Your people yesterday were phoning it in, and you know it. President, would you like to direct me on how I should answer a question about fuel excise? I would just make the point that small businesses are impacted by all sorts of rising input costs that relate to things that are decisions of the former federal government, that are matters of the war in Ukraine— (Time expired)
Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:18): I move:
That the minister’s answer be taken into consideration on the next day of meeting.
Motion agreed to.