Anyone hoarding and reselling fuel online is “un-Australian”, Energy Minister Chris Bowen has said, as the government moves to get more petrol and diesel flowing to areas grappling with a supply crunch.
Mr Bowen on Friday announced the government would cut minimum fuel stock requirements for Australian companies “to enable companies to better handle and better manage their supply chain more flexibly as they try and get more fuel to regional Australia”.
Under the changes, companies need to stock 2.2bn litres of diesel down from 2.7bn litres, and 700m litres of petrol down from 1bn.
He declared the changes “necessary” amid flow-on effects from the spiralling conflict in the Middle East.
One of those effects, according to Mr Bowen, was people buying up fuel from service stations and reselling it in jerry cans on “Facebook Marketplace”.
“I ask Australians – buy as much fuel as you need. No more, no less,” Mr Bowen told reporters in Sydney.
“There are other people – I’ve seen it on Facebook Marketplace – picking up jerry cans, Bunnings running out of jerry cans, selling fuel at inflated prices.
“That’s un-Australian, dangerous, and shouldn’t be done.”
He went on to again urge people against “panic buying”.
“Is the situation internationally serious? Yes, it is. Is Australia’s fuel supply currently secure? Yes. Are the ships arriving as we expect? Yes. Are there further challenges coming? Well, Australians know that there may be further challenges coming,” Mr Bowen said.
“The government’s prepared for that. Australia’s prepared for that. We hope it doesn’t happen. What we need to do is be ready for them.”
‘Major backdown’
Industry, motorists and the opposition have hounded the Albanese government all week amid reports of fuel shortages in rural and regional areas, with the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia putting the average price for diesel in that state at a record high of $2.46 per litre.
In addition to Friday’s reserve release, the federal government has responded by blaming the shortages on panic buying and temporarily lowering fuel quality standards to get more petrol and diesel flowing to supply-stricken service stations.
But the question of whether the country could exhaust its fuel stocks has remained unanswered despite the opposition peppering both Anthony Albanese and Mr Bowen during parliamentary question time.
Responding to Friday’s announcement, Queensland Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie described it as an “admission” that Queenslanders “were right”.
“We sounded the alarm after hearing stories from Queenslanders about how they couldn’t turn on their tractors to make a living or fill up their cars because whole towns were running out of fuel,” Mr Bleijie said in a statement.
“The federal government said we were fearmongering and denied there was an issue.
“Today, we welcome the major backdown and shift in rhetoric that proves Queenslanders got it right.”
Mr Bleijie said he now called on the Albanese government to “release the details of their future plan to ensure ongoing fuel security for all of Queensland”.
More than 50 per cent of Queenslanders live outside of Brisbane, according to the 2021 census.
‘Will Australians run out of fuel?’
While taking questions from reporters, Mr Bowen was asked several times if Australia could “run out of fuel”.
He would not say definitively, instead insisting that “our fuel supply is currently secure”.
He did concede that there were further threats to Australia’s supply as the war with Iran continues.
“That is a realistic thing which governments should prepare for and are prepared for,” Mr Bowen said.
“I think the sort of inflammatory ‘running-out language’ – we are nowhere near that.”
Grilled earlier on the same issues, fellow cabinet minister Mark Butler also failed to say whether Australia would run out of fuel when asked point blank on Seven’s Sunrise: “Will Australians run out of fuel?”
“Well, we’ve been working really hard over the last few years preparing for a situation just like this,” he said.
“We have more fuel on hand than we have had at any time in the last 15 years.
“We’ve got more fuel, certainly, than there was under the last government because of the changes we’ve put in place to require fuel companies to have a minimum stockholding here in the country.
“Indeed, we put new laws through the parliament in November to get better transparency, a better line of sight by governments around these fuel stockholdings.
“And bizarrely, the Liberal Party voted against those arrangements.”
The government’s decision to lower fuel standards would allow an extra 100 million litres of petrol into the country each month.
Those supplies would be directed to areas hardest hit.
‘We are not going to close the Strait of Hormuz’
In New York, Iran’s ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani said his country would not close the Strait of Hormuz despite the Iranian military targeting any ships trying to transit it.
The strait is a narrow water passage separating southern Iran from Oman’s northern tip.
A fifth of the world’s oil shipments transit the strait and its effective closure since the start of the war has driven the spike in global oil prices.
“We are not going to close the Strait of Hormuz,” Mr Iravani said in a prepared statement to reporters.
“But it is our inherent right to preserve the peace and security in this waterway.”
He said that “Iran fully respects and remains committed to the principle of freedom of navigation under the law of the sea”.
“However, the current situation in the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, is not the result of Iran’s lawful exercise of its right of self-defence,” Mr Iravani said.
“Rather, it is the direct consequence of the destabilising actions of the United States in launching aggression against Iran and undermining regional security.”
His comments came after Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, said the “lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used”.
