Warning: Major bill for petrol \u2018panic\u2019 buyers<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI can also confirm that we currently have 57 tankers on the way to Australia with some form of fuel \u2014 jet fuel, diesel, petrol, crude oil \u2014 coming to Australia. That\u2019s a good thing. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can still say that we have roughly as much, if not more, fuel in Australia today than we did when the bombing of Iran started. That\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crisis will have a long tail<\/p>\n
Mr Bowen predicted the crisis would have \u201ca long tail.\u201d <\/p>\n
The government has consistently argued that\u2019s a significant improvement that the system under the previous government.<\/p>\n
Asked this week about his calls for Australia to become self-reliant on fuel, the Prime Minister denied he had failed his own test.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t at all. We have the largest reserves in 15 years,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve made sure on our watch no refineries are shut. The two, we\u2019ve made sure that they\u2019re secure going forward as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when it comes to the strategic fleet, that\u2019s something that\u2019s been considered by the Government. We\u2019re working those issues through to make sure that they\u2019re delivered. That\u2019s an important component. I stand by those comments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Self-reliance is the goal<\/p>\n
It was a message the Prime Minister reiterated at the national press club address last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be more self-sufficient and less vulnerable,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had, fortunately, at the beginning of this global crisis, the largest fuel reserves that we\u2019d had in Australia for 15 years. And importantly, our fuel reserves were here, not in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, six of our refineries were open when we left office in 2013. When we came back in 2022, there were two.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the 2019 election, former Labor leader Bill Shorten had a policy to restore fuel stocks to 90 days in accordance with the IEA requirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, just bear in mind that the 90-day reserve considered by the IEA isn\u2019t a reserve for domestic use,\u2019\u2019 Mr Albanese said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a reserve, as we\u2019ve seen at the moment, for a global crisis to be released. So, that\u2019s why it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things about Australia, because of the size of our continent, is that the cost would be around about $20 billion annually. And the other thing is because fuel can\u2019t be just kept, it has to be topped up, then the challenge for us is very different from a smaller country in Europe, for example, that has a larger population.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe certainly will consider what we can to increase our fuel security. We\u2019ve been doing that. That\u2019s why at the beginning of this crisis, we had the largest reserves in 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019s a war on\u2019<\/p>\n
Mr Bowen said voters understood the reasons behind the rising prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a war on. I think most Australians understand it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone understands it, I think, except the Opposition, who think there should be some magical wand to stop it all happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to pretend that that\u2019s not happening. No one should. And that, as I said in the answer to the previous question, is going to hang around for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the best way we can ensure prices come down is this war ends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read related topics:Anthony Albanese<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese\u2019s bold prediction of a fuel crisis in Australia sparked by a military conflict has come back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12587,5545,2300,85,2652,195213,138,99393,181444,219,195224,25029,195217,169837,177394,195215,195220,180993,195218,76759,195223,14109,195222,16609,81339,195212,188993,195221,155890,2648,111,139,64,13902,69,2659,195211,195216,195219,195214,176219,1734,13883],"class_list":{"0":"post-374180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-anthony-albanese","10":"tag-asia","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","13":"tag-bill-shorten","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-chris-bowen","16":"tag-damian-shaw","17":"tag-economy","18":"tag-fuel-capacity","19":"tag-fuel-crisis","20":"tag-fuel-crisis-warning","21":"tag-fuel-prices","22":"tag-fuel-reserves","23":"tag-fuel-security","24":"tag-fuel-security-obligations","25":"tag-fuel-stocks","26":"tag-fuel-warning","27":"tag-global-crisis","28":"tag-government-inaction-way","29":"tag-iea","30":"tag-international-conflict","31":"tag-iran","32":"tag-jet-fuel","33":"tag-liquid-fuel-reserves","34":"tag-military-conflict","35":"tag-nation-states","36":"tag-national-press-club","37":"tag-new-south-wales","38":"tag-new-zealand","39":"tag-newzealand","40":"tag-north-america","41":"tag-northern-america","42":"tag-nz","43":"tag-oceania","44":"tag-press-club-address","45":"tag-prices-soar","46":"tag-refining-capacity","47":"tag-reuters-ag","48":"tag-southern-asia","49":"tag-sydney","50":"tag-united-states-of-america"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374180","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=374180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}