Australians are still shaking their heads in dismay after expecting a statesman’s address from the Prime Minister during the fuel crisis, but instead Australians got a dubious $20 million ad campaign urging us to remove roof-racks from our cars and pump up our tyres.

On 31 March 2022 – yes, over four years ago - Mr Albanese told Parliament, as Opposition Leader, “We must be prepared for the uncertainty that global events unleash here at home. We must be more self-reliant … and at a time when petrol prices are on everyone's minds, we need a government with a real plan to ensure supply.”

A fire burning at one of Australia’s two fuel refineries in Corio, near Geelong this week is fresh on my mind as I write, with Viva Energy reassuring us diesel and jet fuel production are continuing – albeit, at reduced capacity.

Much has been said about six Australian refineries that closed in 2003, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2020 and 2021. These refineries were relatively small (on average, producing 100,000 barrels a day each) compared to others in our Asia-Pacific region (some now producing over 800,000 barrels per day). At closure, the owners were not crying out for government support, nor were they critical of the then Commonwealth government. Owners pointed to two major factors – first, Australia’s higher cost base for production than in Asia. The Labor-Greens red tape, green tape and industrial relations barriers make Australia globally uncompetitive and an impossible place to build or upgrade to a regionally competitive large-scale refinery. Secondly, and ironically, at closure some owners pointed to what was, then, a global ‘oversupply’

The Australian Government has only once invested significantly in crude oil refining, in Laverton, Victoria in 1920, with a 51 per cent stake in BP’s predecessor, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company – a stake that was sold in 1952.

The world has changed, but what has the Prime Minister been doing since his March 2022 commitment? A whole lot of nothing, and then, lately, burning aviation gas flitting about southeast Asia with cap in hand.

This is a bloke that doesn’t hold a (petrol) hose.