Musician Lecia Louise will hit the road soon on a month-long tour in her diesel van — travelling about 3,500 kilometres from gig to gig.
But the independent artist is unsure whether her shows will still go ahead, after organising them across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
Louise, who is based in Toowoomba in south-east Queensland, has her van packed with a travel bag, music equipment and merchandise.
Her boot is full of a selection of guitars, sound systems, vinyl records, CDs, posters and food supplies.
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Now, days away from her first gig, she remembers the last crisis that stopped her from performing live — the coronavirus pandemic.
Louise said in contrast to COVID-19, travel was now not restricted — it was just very expensive.
Last week, Anthony Albanese gave the first national address by a prime minister since the pandemic, saying the months ahead would not be easy on Australians grappling with spiralling petrol prices as a result of the Iran war.
In 2020–21, it was regular official updates on COVID-19 case numbers. Now, it is updates on the number of petrol stations without fuel.
“Chatting with other musicians, a lot are staying home or cancelling tours,” Louise told the ABC.
“I don’t really want to cancel mine because it took so many hours to put it together.
“[But] every day and every night I’m just extremely stressed. I’ll wake up early in the morning on some nights for a couple of hours thinking, ‘How’s this going to work?'”
Small businesses in crisis mode
WedShed’s Amy Parfett manages about 10 wedding venues and says bookings are drying up.
Ms Parfett said it took about 12 months on average to plan a wedding, which meant it could take years to recover after a drop in bookings.
She has already had to let staff go.
“About a month ago, we could start to see the impacts of [the war],” Ms Parfett told the ABC.
“We had to make a really tough call to actually to say goodbye to one of our full-time sales team members.
“If we’re not booking enough weddings, then there’s unfortunately not enough income to support our team.”
Amy Parfett says it took her business about two years to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic. (Supplied: Scott Surplice)
Ms Parfett said it took about two years for her business and the wider wedding industry to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.
She sees parallels this time around as fuel prices spike, particularly because she books most weddings in regional areas.
“Because the fuel prices are so high, people are thinking, ‘Well, do you know what? I might just hold and wait,'” she said.
“Which then has a flow-on effect to every single provider in the wedding industry because the venue is typically the first thing a couple will book.”
Stuart Ginn, who runs Brookvale Aluminium, says his business had survived the pandemic well but this crisis had ground it to a halt.
He supplies aluminium to businesses in the local north Sydney area, and manufactures it to ship to locations across the country.
The word on the lips of every small business he trades with is: cancellation.
The increase in fuel prices had seen quotes on shipments to Brisbane more than double to almost $1,600, he said.
“Everyone is in sort of crisis mode,” Mr Ginn told the ABC.
“This is the first time we’ve experienced this sort of massive decline in work. It’s instant. That’s the scary bit about it. It just kind of happened overnight.”
Stuart Ginn has already decided to pause further investments in his business amid the fuel crisis. (Supplied)
The federal government has announced $1 billion in interest-free loans for manufacturing and fuel businesses affected by the US and Israel’s war on Iran.
It has also announced temporary concessions from the Australian Taxation Office for businesses unable to meet tax obligations as a result of fuel supply issues.
Mr Ginn has already delayed investing about $100,000 in new manufacturing equipment.
About two-thirds of the funding for the new equipment was going to be supported by a bank loan, he said.
“[It had] all been pre-approved from the banks and everything else and I just went, ‘No, I’m not going to go ahead with this,'” he said.
“The knock-on effect of that is it was an Australian company that manufactured the goods.
“They’re going to sit there with this thing on the floor … They can’t move product. Nothing’s moving.”Working from home to save on petrol
Rachel Burton, who works as an operations manager in Brisbane, is tired of the economic shocks, and says all she can do right now is survive — there is no space to thrive.
To ease the burden, she is working from home to reduce her petrol bill.
She has cut down on spending wherever possible, and worries about having to deal with the increased costs on her own, as a single woman in her late 50s.
“There’s just always a financial drama. First, there was COVID, then inflation,” Ms Burton told the ABC.
“Just when you think, ‘Oh, inflation’s going down, the mortgage is going down,’ then we’ve got the war and the fuel crisis.'”
Rachel Burton says the COVID-19 pandemic left her jobless, and now the fuel crisis has delayed her retirement. (Supplied)
She usually commutes into Brisbane from Coochiemudlo Island, which is about 22km south-east of the Queensland capital.
But since the spike in petrol prices, Ms Burton said she was only going into the office twice a week.
She has cancelled her upcoming appointments to see a specialist about the osteoarthritis in her hip.
She even postponed her retirement after her superannuation balance took a hit amid the uncertainty, she said.
The year started on a high, but now Ms Burton said she was reminded again about the instability the COVID-19 pandemic brought to her life.
Back then, she lost her job and missed her mortgage repayments for the first time.
“It’s just kind of being poked in the eye and the wallet and the tummy all of the time,” she said.
“I feel like the people at the top of the world, like [US President Donald] Trump, who have so much money and so much power, they’re making these decisions that are just decimating everybody.”
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