Australia’s fuel crisis needs electric vehicle subsidies, tax breaks and more domestic oil production

Apr 10, 2026 – 5.00am

In 2010, as governments divided the spoils of Australia’s seemingly endless mining boom, NRMA president Wendy Machin saw clouds on the horizon.

According to the motoring group, Australia was then dependent on imports for more than 55 per cent of its fuel needs. Without immediate and comprehensive action, Machin said, by the end of the decade, about four out of every five litres of petrol put into Australian cars would be imported from “some of the most politically unstable corners of the globe”.

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