The Senate has voted in favor of a proposal to significantly increase the maximum penalties the consumer protection agency can impose for misconduct. This decision comes amid ongoing debates about reducing the fuel excise and concerns over possible fuel rationing.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers emphasized that these measures aim to combat “price gouging.” However, the Greens have contested this claim, while the opposition has criticized the government’s response as sluggish and riddled with “mixed messages.”
“As this situation rapidly escalates into a severe inflationary event, governments at all levels are preparing for worst-case scenarios, including potential fuel rationing and a focus on essential services similar to the COVID-19 response,” one official commented.
The timing and implementation of these strategies are expected to be a key topic of discussion at the upcoming meeting between the state premiers and the Prime Minister next week.
Fuel outages across Australia
Today, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen shared the most recent statistics regarding fuel shortages nationwide.
- NSW: 178 with no diesel, 48 with no stock, total stock.
- Queensland: 55 with no diesel, 33 with no regular unleaded.
- Victoria: 45 with no diesel (down 20) and 72 with no unleaded, (down 70).
- South Australia: nine with no diesel, ten with no unleaded.
- Western Australia: 40 with no diesel, and 14 with no unleaded.
- Tasmania: five with no diesel, nine with some sort of outage.
- ACT: two with no diesel and one with no unleaded.
- Northern Territory: No outages in the NT that are attributable to a lack of fuel supply.
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