Asked if she was concerned about food shortages, King said the federal Government was watching developments in the Middle East closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, the message is people shouldn\u2019t be panicked and shouldn\u2019t panic into panic buying fuel, into panic buying food too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Albanese Government has sought to assure consumers that fuel stocks are adequate and above minimum mandatory levels amid criticism from the Coalition.<\/p>\n
King said she would look into reports Queensland fuel distributors\u2019 supplies had been cut and that many farmers were not able to get the fuel they needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are much more resilient than we were in previous years when it comes to fuel security,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll look into the issue in terms of what\u2019s happened in Queensland specifically \u2013 I\u2019m not aware of particular issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Treasurer Jim Chalmers last week wrote to the ACCC over reports of price gouging on fuel.<\/p>\n
Nationals Leader David Littleproud on Monday warned small wholesalers and farmers were \u201cbeing constrained for the supply that they can get out of the big four oil companies\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat that\u2019s doing, is literally meaning that our farmers who are producing our food and fibre have literally got only what\u2019s left in the tanks of their tractors and nothing in storage to be able to run it of any great length of time,\u201d he told Sky News.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this is where we\u2019re being told, [Minister for Climate Change and Energy of Australia] Chris Bowen\u2019s telling us there\u2019s plenty of supply, and many of the wholesalers are saying there is supply there, but these big four are constraining the release of that supply because they have retail outlets that they\u2019re prioritising.\u201d<\/p>\n
Littleproud urged the ACCC to probe the wholesale market, but urged Australians not to panic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suppliers are there. It just needs some leadership in how we actually manage that and get back to some normality to keep that continuity of supply, through the supply chain, not just the people in the cities to get to and from work, but for your food to be produced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It comes as opposition energy and industry spokesmen, Dan Tehan and Andrew Hastie, raise alarm bells over Australia\u2019s fuel reserves.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the MPs said Australia was at risk of \u201cgoing back to 1940 when rationing was introduced to manage shortages caused by World War II\u201d, under Labor.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris Bowen, must reassure Australians that the Government has a strategy in place to ensure there are adequate fuel supplies for our nation,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cReports that fuel wholesalers have commenced rationing petrol and diesel supplies across Australia are deeply concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement noted Australia was \u201ca diesel economy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout fuel, trucks carrying our food, pharmaceuticals and supplies stop, making us vulnerable,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe former Coalition government introduced the Petroleum and Other Fuels Reporting Act \u2013 a mandatory reporting regime \u2013 to monitor Australia\u2019s fuel security.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris Bowen should be using his powers under the Act to identify customers at risk of fuel shortages \u2013 especially farmers, manufacturers and the transport industry \u2013 to ensure supply gaps are addressed as a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asked if she was concerned about food shortages, King said the federal Government was watching developments in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[30600,806,20919,682,173166,138,3167,537,5972,52331,3806,219,28167,564,2678,4508,16609,10110,111,139,5006,69,691,56155,61,11226,6149,8222],"class_list":["post-320181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-10th","tag-as","tag-australians","tag-being","tag-bowser","tag-business","tag-buy","tag-crisis","tag-day","tag-deepening","tag-east","tag-economy","tag-enters","tag-food","tag-fuel","tag-hits","tag-iran","tag-middle","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-or","tag-panic","tag-to","tag-urged","tag-war","tag-warned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}