EDITORIAL: Albanese should commit to getting oil flowing
We are heading into a fuel supply emergency and price shock that will ripple through every part of the economy. Decisive and clear steps are needed.
In his usual blunt style, United States President Donald Trump has sent a message to the West.
If they need to get oil flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow channel virtually locked shut by Iran — they ought to sort it out themselves.
In simple terms they should go and get their own oil.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.In his address to the US nation on Thursday (Australian time) Mr Trump addressed countries concerned about global oil stocks: “Go to the Strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves”.
It is for this very purpose that Britain has dusted off the Coalition of the Willing template and collected a group of nations aiming to explore ways to secure the Strait of Hormuz after a ceasefire.
The Nightly reveals that Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer, said the UK had united 35 nations around a joint statement expressing “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.”
Australia is part of the group.
And so the challenge has been set. The question is, how far will Prime Minister Anthony Albanese go to meet it?
In his address Mr Trump signalled the end to the war with Iran is still two to three weeks away.
No doubt that is if everything goes according to his plan. That is a big if.
Yet the Prime Minister has been trying to give off a “keep calm and carry on” vibe, even going so far in his address on Wednesday night as to tell Australians to “enjoy your Easter” and to just fill up their tanks “like you normally would”.
The reality is that even he admits “the months ahead may not be easy”.
However Mr Albanese is spending time setting up a straw man argument that the Government was taking a different approach to the “harsh restrictions” of the COVID days.
“We have learned from that time — and we are deliberately taking a different approach,” Mr Albanese said.
The Government was “being clear about what we want life to look like here in Australia, even as the global situation becomes more challenging, so we do not have a repeat of the social dislocation of COVID,” he said.
But the situation we find ourselves in is nothing like COVID. Mr Albanese is being unnecessarily political.
We are heading into a fuel supply emergency and price shock that will ripple through every part of the economy.
We face skyrocketing inflation, interest rates and unemployment.
Decisive and clear steps are needed.
The Government should step up and take action with the proposed international coalition to protect the supply routes to get oil flowing again.
This should be our number one priority.
And yet as we find ourselves at crunch time, the danger is that years of failure to provide for our defence needs means there are questions around our capacity to join the plan under consideration.
And that in itself is an issue.
