AFR · Ryan Cropp · Saturday 28 March 2026
The federal government will use taxpayer funds to underwrite purchases of critical imported fuel as Middle East conflict threatens Australia's notoriously thin supply reserves.
Fifty years of strategic fuel policy and the big idea is the government going to Costco with your credit card. We wouldn't need to underwrite emergency shiploads if any government since Whitlam had built a reserve worth more than a long weekend's driving. This isn't energy security — it's a nation that refused to fill the pantry now paying surge pricing at the corner shop and calling it leadership.