Crisis? What crisis? Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen’s panicked response to the energy shock

Anthony Albanese is doing his best to make himself accountable for the anxiety many Australians feel about fuel running out and petrol prices soaring by more than 30 per cent in four weeks.

“I’m pretty accountable and so is the Government,” he said, at the end of a week where many Australians felt deep misgivings about Labor’s response.

Throughout the past week, the Federal Government has gradually drip-fed information to motorists about petrol supplies via short answers in Parliamentary question time, hoping not to raise anxiety levels in the population.

By Friday, the Prime Minister had recognised it was time for a proper news conference, alongside his Energy Minister Chris Bowen, to assure Australians that multiple efforts were underway to address the deepening emergency.

In the blue room of Parliament House, Mr Albanese insisted Australia’s supplies were secure and flagged that his next meeting with State and Territory leaders on Monday would develop a truly national response, unlike the COVID crisis before he came to office.

“I can assure Australians we’re working around the clock. And I want us to have the strongest possible plans, so we’re ready as well. Over prepared for what may come.”

Blaming Donald

Labor’s internal polling confirms deep community anxiety over rising petrol prices, but also that most voters are still overwhelmingly blaming US President Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East for the oil shock.

It was a point the Prime Minister also emphasised during his press conference.

“This war is real. This war is having an impact on Australians, like it’s having an impact right around the world. You can’t wish that away,” he said.

But the Government’s response to the global oil shortage is coming to resemble Mr Albanese’s belated response to establishing the Bondi royal commission.

After weeks of Labor downplaying the need for one, in the wake of Australia’s worst-ever terror attack, the Prime Minister buckled to pressure over summer, including from NSW Premier Chris Minns.

Now, he’s doing it again, today flagging that Monday’s National Cabinet could end up coming up with a national approach to fuel shortages — two days after Victoria’s Jacinta Allan called for a unified approach to the fuel crisis.

This was after weeks of his government downplaying the need for fuel rationing despite evidence of service stations running out of diesel and unleaded.

Like the COVID pandemic when Scott Morrison was the Liberal prime minister, Labor state premiers have led the charge for intervention.

This time, Labor leaders are contradicting a Federal Labor government, making its attempts to avert panic among Australian consumers look weak and reactive.

Mr Bowen has repeatedly downplayed the need for rationing, a week ago saying it wasn’t even being remotely considered.

“Well, look, as I said previously, we’re not there and we’re not close to there,” he told reporters in Brisbane on March 20. “That’s not been contemplated as something that we need to do in the immediate future.”

A week earlier, Mr Bowen mocked a Guardian journalist, Luca Ittimani, for asking what he would do about panic buying.

“Well, if you want to advocate petrol rationing, you’re welcome to do that. That is not my intention,” he said, before abruptly ending a press conference.

By Monday, he admitted to Parliament that the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water was analysing fuel rationing.

“Of course, I have engaged with my department in prudent contingency planning,” he said under Opposition questioning, adding rationing was a “long way” off.

Emergency measures

Under the National Liquid Fuel Emergency Response Plan, the Federal Government has the power to co-ordinate an approach to fuel rationing.

This would be unlike the response to the 1973 Yom Kippur War when State governments such as South Australia implemented rationing by issuing permits for essential workers for fuel.

Like previous crises, premiers haven’t been shy about contradicting the Federal Government. Mr Minns this week said emergency measures would be required if the monthly tally of oil tankers due to arrive in Australia fell below 80.

This was after Mr Bowen told the ABC’s Insiders program that six ships due to arrive in Australia from mid-April to mid-May had been cancelled or deferred.

“The key metric that we are watching from the Commonwealth Government is the number of inbound fuel ships to Australia,” Mr Minns told Parliament.

“If the number of those ships that are projected to arrive every month, and there’s 80 per month, if that number starts to fall — if that number starts to fall ... then we have to take emergency measures on a graduated basis as that number declines.”

Mr Minns compelled oil companies to provide information on how they were getting fuel to regional areas — a policy Mr Bowen ruled out in Parliament on Wednesday under Opposition questioning.

Mr Albanese’s decision to convene national cabinet on Monday was not welcomed by everyone.

Pandemic-style reaction

Westpac Bank’s chief economist, Luci Ellis, expressed concern politicians would overreact to fuel shortages by restricting basic freedoms, including forcing people to work at home.

“The Middle East conflict and the resulting fuel crisis are not the same as previous crises and should not require COVID-style policy responses,” she wrote on Friday. “Nor should they fall into the trap of ‘we must do something, and this is something’.”

The Opposition came with up with its own, much simpler plan on Friday: halve the cost of the petrol and diesel excise tax.

Appearing at a 7-Eleven outlet in a Canberra suburb, Liberal leader Angus Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan said their three-month 26.3-cent reduction, plus a similar-sized cut on truck charges, would lift some of the pain from drivers, at a Budget cost of $1.5 billion.

“Anthony Albanese is asleep at the wheel,” Mr Taylor said. “He needs to stop watching and start acting.”

In a sign the dispute has become ideological, he proposed funding the tax cut, to the existing 52.6-cent a litre excise, by pausing measures supported by green energy proponents, especially Mr Bowen.

The savings include ending the tax break for electric cars, a measure that has made a big contribution to the popularity of Chinese-made Teslas, BYDs and other battery-powered models.

“We don’t think you make petrol cheaper by making electricity more expensive,” Mr Bowen said.

The quip wasn’t logical — the government is considering introducing a “road user” tax on electric cars in the budget — and it sounded like Mr Bowen favoured electric cars over petrol and diesel-powered ones.

EV sales, as a proportion of all cars bought, doubled in February to 11.8 per cent from the same month a year earlier. Anecdotal evidence from car dealers suggests sales have accelerated since the war began.

While EV sales are growing, they remain low compared with conventional vehicles. Mr Taylor and Senator Canavan — both supporters of coal, gas and nuclear power — are betting more Australians would prefer cheaper petrol than less-expensive Teslas.

In other words, the Middle Eastern war is merging, politically, with the climate wars.

The consequences of oil shortages are likely to be more serious than global warming in the short term. Petrol rationing would be extremely inconvenient for most people. But a less-noticed crisis is brewing in agriculture.

Most of Australia’s fertiliser is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. There is only enough stockpiled to last another six weeks, the GrainGrowers association warned, prompting some farmers to question why Australia was not better prepared for a energy crisis that was not entirely unpredictable.

“A simple regional war between Iran and Israel has exposed a glaring weakness of our country,” South Australian wheat farmer Corbin Schuster wrote recently, “. . . no domestic fertiliser production and a severely deficient national oil refining capacity . . . surely this is of greater strategic importance?”

Mr Schuster was comparing Australia’s preparation for large-scale war, including the purchase of frigates and submarines, with the nation’s dependence on the Middle East for urea, a key component of fertiliser.

Unless the war ends soon and the global shipping trade returns to normal — a situation that requires the agreement of two stubborn governments — the outlook is serious.

Farmers don’t know if they will have enough fertiliser for the main winter crops, wheat, barley, and canola. They also want assurances diesel fuel will be available to transport their produce to buyers.

New Zealand, which has no refineries, is down to 18 days of diesel supplies.

Other industries are being hit too. A fuel levy has been introduced at the Sydney Fish Market on seafood sold by auction to cover the higher cost of operating boats.

A small West Australia iron ore producer, Fenix, has cut back non-essential work because of diesel shortages.

Even garbage trucks owners, who rely on fixed-price contracts, have complained to Mr Bowen they are running out of cash from the higher cost of diesel.

Which is another powerful warning to the energy minister: if rubbish starts piling up on suburban streets, no-one will care what he says.