{"id":578695,"date":"2026-04-01T14:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T14:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/578695\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T14:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T14:30:10","slug":"uncertain-times-albanese-warns-months-ahead-may-not-be-easy-in-rare-address-to-nation-about-middle-east-crisis-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/578695\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Uncertain times\u2019: Albanese warns months ahead \u2018may not be easy\u2019 in rare address to nation about Middle East crisis | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has used a rare address to the nation<\/a> to attempt to allay public fears over dwindling fuel supplies, vowing to keep petrol prices down by shoring up international supplies and ramping up local production.<\/p>\n

In an acknowledgment of the global challenges and \u201cuncertain times\u201d ahead due to the war in the Middle East, the prime minister used a prerecorded video address to outline how Australia was responding to the \u201ceconomic shocks\u201d that \u201cwill be with us for months\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Albanese talked up national cabinet\u2019s fuel security plan, the temporary halving of the fuel excise until July which came into effect on Wednesday, and cutting heavy vehicle road user charges to zero for now.<\/p>\n

But the prime minister pointed to longer term measures to ensure fuel prices would not spike again once those changes expired.<\/p>\n

Those include refining more fuel for domestic consumption and securing fuel orders from international suppliers as the global crisis continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working to bring the price of fuel down. To make more fuel here and to keep it onshore,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd get more fuel here \u2013 using our strong trading relationships with our region to bring more petrol, diesel and fertiliser to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prime minister sought to assure Australians it was still business as normal but said workers should consider taking public transport to conserve fuel supplies for those who didn\u2019t have the option.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re hitting the road, don\u2019t take more fuel than you need \u2013 just fill up like you normally would. Think of others in your community, in the bush and in critical industries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd over coming weeks, if you can switch to catching the train or bus or tram to work, do so. That builds our reserves and it saves fuel for people who have no choice but to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia remains on level two of national cabinet\u2019s four-stage fuel security plan, meaning there are no moves to introduce stricter measures to reduce demand.<\/p>\n

The government has made several interventions to shore up petrol and diesel supplies in recent weeks as it scrambles to cushion Australia from the global energy crisis sparked by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, said the prime minister did not give enough detail about how much fuel the country had in reserve and urged him to be more transparent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has consistently been a lack of detail, but also a lack of a plan,\u201d Taylor said on Wednesday night. \u201cWe know we\u2019ve got a problem with 600 servos, we also know that the government keeps telling us there\u2019s more than enough stock and so we need clarity on this. We need a plan to go with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prime minister\u2019s remarks were delivered just hours before the US president, Donald Trump, was scheduled to make his own national address on the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Trump on Wednesday (Australian time) suggested the US military operation could end within \u201ctwo or three weeks\u201d while his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, declared \u201cwe can see the finish line\u201d in the conflict.<\/p>\n

The Australian government is desperate for the war to end and for the strait of Hormuz to reopen as fears mount about the severity of the domestic economic shock if the fuel crisis drags on for months.<\/p>\n

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, announced a suite of Covid-era<\/a> business relief on Wednesday while revealing that officials were modelling a wider range of economic scenarios \u2013 including a prolonged oil crisis that triggers a recession.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer the shock drags out, obviously, the harsher the consequences for our economy, whether that\u2019s measured by inflation \u2026 or by impacts on the labour market,\u201d Chalmers said.<\/p>\n

The prime minister will appear at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday, giving him another opportunity to update the public ahead of the Easter long-weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has used a rare address to the nation to attempt to allay public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-578695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}