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Well, this ought to make Australians sit back with a sigh of relief and stop worrying if they’re going to be able to fill up the car tomorrow: Albo’s on the case. Hooray, our worries are over! He’ll fix this just like he fixed our skyrocketing electricity bills, uncontrolled mass immigration, cost of living crisis and the tidal wave of violent anti-Semitism.
Oh.. Wait…
Anthony Albanese has taken a drastically different tack on handling the fuel crisis and, most importantly, the prime minister has dragged Chris Bowen along with him.
Now we really are in trouble.
After two weeks of simply telling motorists not to “panic buy” fuel, that there’s plenty of fuel available and dismissively accusing the coalition of being extremist fear mongers and “not serious people” Albanese and the energy minister have turned.
Labor thought that an ineffective coalition in parliament meant Bowen could get away with his usual dodging of questions, dismissive behaviour and arrogant advice to motorists of “don’t panic” and that it’s “un-Australian” to top up your tank as well as belittling coalition MPs.
But, outside parliament there is growing concern and a growing appetite for genuine information about petrol and diesel availability beyond the throwaway lines.
What’s everyone so worried about. So what if over 500 service stations across the country are already running dry?
Energy Minister Chris Bowen today told federal parliament’s Question Time there were currently 520 service stations across the country without at least one type of fuel.
In NSW there were 178 service stations without diesel and 48 without at least one fuel type, out of more than 2,400 locations.
There were 55 stations without diesel in Queensland and 33 out of regular unleaded, while in Victoria 72 had no diesel and 45 had no unleaded out of 1,600 locations.
In South Australia nine stations had no diesel and 10 had no unleaded, while in WA 40 had no diesel and 14 had no unleaded. In Tasmania, five stations had no diesel and nine had one or more type of fuel unavailable.
At least the panic-buying ninnies can burn their vast piles of unused Covid toilet paper to keep warm when the fuel runs out.
Options for voluntary measures to reduce fuel consumption, such as working from home as well as the supply thresholds for making stricter interventions, will be on the agenda.
State and territory leaders will also push for greater transparency of the federal government’s contingency plans.
They’re kidding, right? This is the government who’ve been screamed at by industry and farming groups to develop contingency plans for just such an emergency as this. They’ve done worse than nothing: they’ve actively conspired, via the smirking idiot Bowen’s lunatic ‘Net Zero’ agenda, to make sure we’re as un-prepared for a crisis as possible.
During Question Time, Mr Bowen said the nation’s two remaining oil refineries were working “full pelt” churning fuel into the domestic market.
Those would be the two remaining refineries that Climate Cultists like Bowen screeched blue murder about, when then-PM Scott Morrison intervened to stop them being closed down. Morrison was ‘writing a blank cheque’ to the wicked fossil fuel industry was the mantra, back then. It was a near-run thing.
In 2000, Australia had eight refineries. In 2003, the refinery at Port Stanvac in SA was closed. In 2012, the refinery at Clyde in NSW closed. In 2014, the refinery at Kurnell in NSW closed. In 2015, the refinery at Bulwer Island in Queensland closed. In 2021, the Kwinana refinery in WA and the Altona refinery in Victoria closed.
As for critical fuel reserves, in 2002, Australia (under John Howard) held over 300 days of fuel stock. In January 2010 (Kevin Rudd), Australia had 83 days. In January 2012 (Julia Gillard), Australia was down to 60 days.
Under Albo and Boofhead: not even 34 days. Bowen tried to dodge a question on the issues last week from One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce. Pressed to come clean, he admitted that his ‘34 days’ answer didn’t mean “in store on Australian soil”. Instead, Bowen sheepishly admitted, the 34 days “only include fuel in Australia or on ships in our economic zone”.
When Bowen pontificated, this week, that “Serious times call for serious people and they are not serious people”, it turns out he was lecturing at the mirror.
