Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
Shadow Attorney-General
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Senator for Western Australia
16 APRIL 2026
Sky News with Chris Kenny
Topics: Fuel crisis, Geelong refinery fire, Chris Bowen, immigration policy, housing, Paul Keating
E&OE
Chris Kenny
Going to jump across to the other side of the country now and catch up with the Shadow Attorney-General, Michaelia Cash, thanks for joining us, Michaelia. I just want to go straight to the fuel crisis and the fire in Geelong and the way this exposes just how fragile our situation is.
Senator Cash
Absolutely and Chris, what I think it also shows is it’s beyond a fuel crisis now. It is a lack of confidence by the states, and they are Labor states, in our Prime Minister. You will have seen that my state of Western Australia, and even now New South Wales, are now looking to secure their own sources of fuel. Why? Because they don’t have confidence in our Prime Minister. He has lost control of this crisis, and in fact, some would argue he never had control of this crisis. What we have always said is needed is a national approach, a national response coming out of Canberra. What we have now around Australia is just a patchwork. Patchwork does not provide the security that Australia needs, and that’s why you see Western Australia, probably New South Wales, maybe other states now literally saying we’ve lost confidence in our Prime Minister. And I agree with you, in relation to Chris Bowen, who’s now known as Buffoon Bowen, based on his head in the sand comments. As I said, it’s now gone beyond a fuel crisis. This is now a crisis of confidence in the Prime Minister of this country.
Chris Kenny
I’ve got to say that I’ve seen Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s travel this week and last week as really an attempt to pretend he’s doing something. I mean, if you wanted oil from oil-rich countries like Brunei and Malaysia in our region, this should have been something that was acted on many, many years ago to make sure that less of our fuel has to come through the Straits of Hormuz and then, of course, Albanese today has announced that, because of him, 100 million litres of diesel is coming into the country. That’s one day’s supply.
Senator Cash
Correct, one day. So what we’ve said is they need to set up a national dashboard. Australians, they should be given transparency by this government. They should know at any given point of time how much fuel is in this country, where it is, where the bowsers are that are dry, where it’s going to. But more than that, what is this Government doing to ensure that we increase our storage capacity? They were great criticisers of us. You know that famous video now of Mr. Albanese criticizing us in 2020. Well, haven’t his words come back to bite. When we left office, fuel storage in this country was at 64 days. Mr. Albanese has done nothing to increase that. In fact, it is worse. It is now – or when the crisis began, as you know, it was at 49 days. But worse than that, you’ve got Chris Bowen and I just – you replayed it. It was just fantastic, Buffoon Bowen saying that nowhere in this fuel crisis has any other country said, “oh, this lack of fuel means that we are –
Chris Kenny
He keeps telling us –
Senator Cash
What does he think his Prime Minister is currently doing? What does he think Albanese is currently doing? He is running around trying to secure more fossil fuels. But I think more worrying, that means there’s a total disconnect at the very top. And as you rightly pointed out, we don’t know what’s actually happening. Albanese stands up and gives a press conference. What is actually happening as a result of this travel? What did he actually secure in Singapore? Because in my analysis, he secured nothing more than what we already had. Why even bother standing up and addressing the Australian people. Don’t treat them like mugs. Come back here and actually do something, because your Labor states are showing they have no confidence in you as our Prime Minister at all.
Chris Kenny
I got to say, this is one of those issues where you see just how jaundiced the media is, because I can imagine if a Coalition Energy Minister was saying no one’s chasing extra fossil fuels, while the Prime Minister was overseas chasing fossil fuels, the whole media would call out the hypocrisy.
Senator Cash
Can you honestly imagine? You would have meme after meme after meme. That is exactly right.
Chris Kenny
Most of the media, the Canberra press gallery are letting them get away with this absolutely paradoxical nonsense. I want to get on to immigration and this survey today that shows our population is outstripping our housing growth by a factor of three. No wonder people can’t afford to buy a house.
Senator Cash
Well, Chris, it’s the double whammy, isn’t it, under the Labor government, you bring too many people in, and despite what Labor says, that’s what the statistics show, January of this year alone, net permanent and long term arrivals in excess of 57,000. Highest January figure on record. That same figure in the 12 months to January, almost half a million. Again, highest 12 month period ever. But the killer figure is what you just said. Between 2023, and 2025, again. Labor like to deny this. The statistics don’t lie. Population increase 1.5 million. We know where that came from. But the killer figure is 527,000 homes completed. Blind Freddie can tell you, as a government, you bring too many people in, and you don’t build the necessary houses, you lock Australians out of the housing market. And Angus Taylor has been pretty clear. They’ve broken the system. We’re going to fix the system, in particular, when it comes to that direct linkage of the number of people coming in will be linked directly to the number of houses built.
Chris Kenny
Well, to be fair, to be fair, we don’t need one house per immigrant because people tend to come in families or couples, but yeah, you’ve got to match it.
Senator Cash
It’s out of control, and you’ve got to have that linkage, correct.
Chris Kenny
I just want to go to a criticism that’s come from Paul Keating, the former Labor Prime Minister. This is the sort of the criticism I highlighted yesterday and I predicted the day before. It is so divisive and it’s so predictable. Keating says the Liberal Party is battling an extreme version of itself. One Nation has again fallen back to its default political policy of racism. He goes on to say, to hammer the point, “sitting beside Taylor at his policy launch yesterday was Mr. Racial Opportunism himself, John Winston Howard, late of the anti-Asian immigration back in 1988.” He’s referring to comments there, the picket fence, suburban racism of his first round as Liberal leader, and “the willful and anti-humanitarianism of his electorally-driven Tampa atrocity of 2001.” I mean, honestly, this language is so unhinged it almost doesn’t bear sharing with the public, except that he is a former Prime Minister. I mean the Tampa and atrocity, where these people’s lives were saved and they were offered, of course, passage to countries if they were refugees? And I would point out that the Pacific solution has eventually been adopted by Labor that they still run.
Senator Cash
The irony does not escape. Chris, what I’d also say on this is, this is typical of Paul Keating and Labor, when they can’t defend their own record, they just hurl the insults. I mean, people do not need a lecture from Paul Keating. They are living Labor’s failures on a daily basis. When it comes to the numbers being too high, when it comes to immigration and the standards being too low, they see, they live the breakdown in social cohesion. They cannot get into the housing market, etc.
Chris Kenny
But I need to, I need to wrap up. Sorry. Michaelia Cash, I’m just running out of time, and maybe for fthe Coalition’s sake, Paul Keating ought to buy into the debate every day. Thanks for joining us, Michaelia.
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