What our chosen fuel crisis reveals about our political establishment

The political class has imposed energy insecurity

Back in 2020, before he was Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese stated that “Australia is an island nation and fuel security should be our top priority.”

But since he became Prime Minister, he has seemingly done everything he can to undermine our fuel security. Australia’s total refinery output has fallen by 10 per cent since May 2022, for example.

Further, Australia’s production of crude oil and condensate, the feedstocks for these refineries, has fallen by 20 per cent. This means that the output of Australian refineries has declined and we are increasingly unable to provide the inputs for these refineries.

In the three months to July 2025, only 11.3 per cent of refinery inputs were sourced from Australia, down from 33.6 per cent in the three months to May 2022.

Our political class has chosen to take this path of declining domestic fuel refining capability. There has been a bipartisan consensus to stop exploring for and developing new sources of coal, oil, and gas, and to prioritise reducing Australia’s contribution to global carbon emissions (which are around 1 per cent, or just 14 days’ worth of Chinese emissions).

Remember, according to Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s department, that Australia is reliant on coal, oil, and gas for 91 per cent of our energy consumption.

For all their rhetoric about becoming a “renewable energy superpower” – a lie that both the Labor and the Liberals have pushed for years – Australia is almost entirely reliant on coal, oil, and gas.

So, what has been the result of spending tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money subsidising intermittent renewable energy and electric vehicles? What has been the result of the extensive regulatory and legal hurdles (including outright bans) put in place to stop the development of our natural resources?

Energy insecurity.

Australia is currently reliant on imports for close to 80 per cent of our refined fuel needs, despite having vast reserves.

Because we chose to give up our domestic oil production and refining capabilities, and instead rely increasingly on imports from overseas, Australians are being squeezed at the petrol pump. War in the Middle East has again broken out, disrupting the flow of oil and fuel around the world. Prices have increased, and many petrol stations have run dry. Some farmers have been unable to get the diesel they need to keep our food production going.

This is not a new problem. The only reason Australia is facing fuel shortages and energy insecurity is because our political class decided that’s where they wanted to lead us.

During the parliamentary debate over what became the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984, the leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister, Doug Anthony, argued that Australia should do everything it could to avoid being forced into an energy emergency. “[We] need to do our best to ensure that an emergency does not arise,” Anthony said.

“We cannot stop an outbreak of war in the Middle East that would halt or severely restrict our imports of oil. We may not be able to prevent an outbreak of massive industrial disruption on the waterfront or in the oil industry in this country, but we can have policies which ensure the maximum possible level of oil exploration in Australia and the maximum development of existing oil fields”.

If only Doug Anthony could see us now.

In 1983-84, Australia imported 97.2 petajoules (PJ) worth of refined petroleum products, which was 7.3 per cent of our total consumption. Everything else that we needed, the other 92.7 per cent, was produced in Australia.

The situation is almost totally reversed today. In 2023-24, we set a new record for reliance on imports. We now import some 1,922.7 PJ worth of refined fuels, or 78.5 per cent of our needs.

Between 1983-84 and 2001-02, Australia imported on average only 8.5 per cent of its required refined fuels. After this, Australia started signing up for increasingly onerous ‘climate change’ policies, and as a result of these political decisions our ability to refine oil rapidly disappeared.

The Port Stanvac refinery closed in 2003. The following year, Australia imported 21 per cent of its refined fuels. The Clyde refinery closed in 2013, followed by the Kurnell refinery (October 2014) and the Bulwer Island refinery (May 2015). By the end of 2015, Australia was signed up to the Paris Agreement, and had sacrificed its fuel sovereignty, becoming reliant on imports for more than half of consumption.

Most recently closed were the Kwinana refinery (March 2021) and the Altona refinery (August 2021). They shut down just in time for Scott Morrison to announce that he was signing Australia up for net zero emissions by 2050, in a direct contradiction of his 2019 election commitment to not pursue net zero.

Last year, Prime Minister Albanese announced that the federal government would throw $1.1 billion of taxpayer funds at “low carbon liquid fuels” produced from “feedstocks like canola, sorghum, sugar and waste”, with first production “estimated by 2029”.

One cannot help thinking he should have instead spent this money on reopening our oil refineries, and allowed Australia to drill its way back to energy security.

So, don’t blame conflict in the Middle East for our energy insecurity. The blame lies with our political class. It lies with the Labor and Liberal parties, who chose to put vacuous efforts to reduce carbon emissions ahead of our energy security, and therefore ahead of our national security.

A nation should be able to feed itself, fuel itself, and defend itself. Until we get real and start drilling oil, digging coal, and extracting gas, Australia will struggle to do these basic things.

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