Govt responds to fuel shortage by pushing the price down, thereby increasing consumption and maintaining dependence.
This is fine.
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
63 points (98.5% liked)
Australia
4957 readers
116 users here now
A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.
Before you post:
If you're posting anything related to:
- The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
- Politics, post it to Australian Politics
- World News/Events, post it to World News
- A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian
If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:
- When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment
Banner Photo
Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Australian Politics
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
- Aussie Memes
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
Moderation
Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.
Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Long term it would be bad. High prices help hasten energy transition and energy independence but the collapse of the Libs has left a very dangerous power vacuum.
Hopefully Trump dies of natural causes or gets the 25th soon and the disruptions in the gulf ends.
Meanwhile Labor needs to be seen to be doing popular things to keep the fossil fuel and billionaire funded populists to 20%
Government is always about finding a balance, not being perfect.
Hmm, yes, "politics is the art of the possible", good point.
Although, in a few weeks when it becomes clear that the govt effectively sat on it's hands and did stuff all while the obvious situation unfolded predictably, that's not going to be great for their polling numbers either.
They have been getting fuel into the country and trying to support critical industries and combat price increases. There is a limit. We aren't about to sanction the USA or start a war with them. Global oil prices aren't something our government can control.
Whatever they do it's going to end with fuel rationing I think. Odd and even plate days etc. Seen it all before. People forget quickly how vulnerable we are to disruptions in the global supply chain.
Cutting fuel excise is likely a poor decision conomically but there is a constant theme I see online, don't know where it comes from, that this government does nothing. They are obviously doing a hell of a lot and perhaps more than they should. It isn't being reported or understood for some reason.
Defenestration is natural causes for Russian Agents.
But Russia do not currently have the resources to liquidate their asset.
and don't forget the lost revenue made up with more federal debt.
Also, needed some fuel on the weekend for the mower so took up our 2 x 20L fuel containers we keep in the shed for the mower / whipper snipper to fill them up... Could feel the eyes as we dared fill up a couple of jerry cans. Obviously hoarding. After turning up in our EV....
Really surprised at the lack of anger at old Trumpy over this whole thing. Everyones so quick to blame "Albo" or "Labor" ("labour" usually) rather than... the bloke who is literally the one who initiated the conflict??
Anyway. Will certainly be delicious irony if this is the turning point for electric adoption.
Only an idiot would blame Albo.
However, I'm really raging that Albo and other world leaders won't hold Trump's feet to the fire over this.
Trump started it and he's the only one that can finish it and the only way he will do that is if other leaders throw some shade on him for this idiocy.
Really surprised at the lack of anger at old Trumpy over this whole thing.
Don't worry, I'm blaming Trump for this.
You are not the only one. I interact with a lot of right-wing nutters and also right-wing “normal” people who are now blaming Trump. Even the cookers and Red Hats are rethinking their world view.
They’re not political you see
Lowering the price will just increase consumption and hoarding.
The solution to shortages is rationing, but the government is worried (probably accurately) that it will be unpopular.
I can see an argument that this will keep the same consumption of fuel as before in order to sustain the economy (and they are betting on supply issues not getting worse) but shouldn’t this then be accompanied with at least some other measures to reduce overall consumption (eg federal support for cheaper public transport or WFH options)?
Or maybe this is to just make people not “feel” the effects of the war to keep everyone happy?
EU member states took different approches: targeted tax cuts for truck drivers, or targeted 100 EUR subsidy for lower income households to spend on energy (fuel or electricity), or general energy tax cut for both fuel and electricity.
The idea being to either subsidize fuels for folks who must use fuel. Or subsizie energy in general so that both fuel and electricity gets cheaper, so that polluting energy sources doesn't get more tax cut than electricity.
They're at least gonna enforce servos passing the saving on right? They'll fine any cunts their entire revenue since the war started right?
Since the fuel price is set by market forces (rather than a cost plus model), and the law doesn't prevent price gouging in energy (those laws only apply to supermarkets) we'll likely see a drop (or at least a pause in the increases) when it's first introduced, but then the fuel companies will slowly wind it back up till they are pocketing the excise change.
So no - there's no framework forcing the saving to be passed on to motorists, and in the medium term it will go to fuel companies, funded by taxpayers.
While it’d be a massive fucking bureaucratic nightmare - the Govt should probably opt to refund the fuel excise levy on a monthly/quarterly basis through the ATO & financial institutions.
While it won’t do anything to curb panic-demand, it would at least provide an avenue for directly reducing end-user fuel costs in a noticeable way.
Yeah, but anyone that hates and blames politicians for this would hate and blame politicians if they did what you're suggesting. This strategy gives less money directly but more directly addresses the anger and democracy is basically a popularity contest
Will certainly take the wind out of the sails of the usual conservative bogan types who have been making a big song and dance about how the gubberment needs to save them from our own over-reliance on oil.
That's likely the reason yeah, even if it makes the problem worse given it's mostly a demand side problem (for now). Functionally illiterate conservatives don't know or care about that, however.
As opposed to the functionally illiterate “progressives” who think their EVs are made using sunshine and wind 🤣🤡
You again? What part of the fossil fuel industry do you work in?
Nobody believes EVs are without drawbacks, but your blind hatred of renewables and EVs comes across as more unhinged every time I see your name on a comment. I've engaged with you in good faith before and you have shown yourself to be a bad actor. If you can't figure out why moving away from fossil fuels is a good thing at least shut up and let the rest of the world get on with it.
Whoosh.
EVs, batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines are all made with fossil fuels.
I don’t hate renewable energy and EVs actually. I love solar power, and any cars I buy as daily drivers in the future will be EVs. I’ve got 42kWh of home batteries with solar panels feeding them, racking up credit every month instead of a power bill.
What I am against is the “renewables” industry push as it is. It’s not a path to zero carbon. All it’s doing is passing our carbon creation to China, and lining their pockets while they spit it out into the atmosphere and make us more and more reliant on them.
Batteries and their materials are not renewable.
Solar panels are not made from renewable materials, nor are they economically feasible to even recycle - it is cheaper to chuck them in landfill and buy a new one than to recycle or repair an old/broken one.
The only way to actual carbon neutral is nuclear, but the “renewable” zealots don’t want it because they listen to people making billions off government subsidies for “renewables”.
… and petrol company’s are already preemptively jacking up prices again;
Doing a Coles.
Up Up! Prices are Up!
so retailers can sell for the same price and pocket the reduced tax. hurray for labor. NOT.