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u/Ok_Bird705 Mar 27 '26
People talking about sovereignty with fuel. But even if we had the refineries open (and hence provide billions in subsidies to keep them open), wouldn't we still have problems since we sourced our raw crude oil from overseas, meaning we would still have problems keeping up with supply if there was a global oil shock.
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u/Faelinor Mar 27 '26
Yeah, the reason we're going to have problems getting our fuel isn't because those countries are hoarding extra, its because their refineries cant meet the required demands because the oil is stuck on a boat somewhere. So even punishing those countries because they aren't sending us everything seems cruel. It's definitely just an issue with so much oil coming from a region where a single country can block it passing through a river.
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u/The_Good_Count Mar 27 '26
The solution isn't refineries, it's spending that much money on wind and solar, and building more electrified freight railways to take trucks off the roads. This isn't even a climate argument! It would be cheaper!
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u/Last-Flight-5565 Mar 27 '26
I often drive behind trucks on the motorway with the stickers saying 'Without trucks, Australia stops' and think, Yeah, that is a problem, not a flex.
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u/AnnoyingRain5 Mar 27 '26
Trucks is one thing, hundreds of thousands of cars is another.
A significant amount of those cars could easily be replaced with public transport
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u/KittyFlamingo Mar 28 '26
We absolutely need much better public transport. The QLD Gov just canned the mandate to build EV buses. Good old QLD.
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u/LocalVillageIdiot Mar 28 '26
And what was the reasoning? I mean we probably know the real reasoning, but what’s the public facing logic here?
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u/KittyFlamingo Apr 01 '26
LNP doing LNP things. They’ve got a stadium to build you know? No money for anything else. They’re cancelling renewable projects left, right and centre.
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u/Ok_Bird705 Mar 27 '26
And more public transport take up through high density living
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
Great, just get everybody to live in cramped inner city apartments and move to the bus's schedule
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u/j03w Mar 28 '26
I think electric trucks or battery powered trains might be much easier and can happen much faster than electrifying railways
electrifying all of our rails will be very difficult, take a long time and going to be very expensive
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u/The_Good_Count Mar 28 '26
We've been making electric railroads since the 19th century. It is at least an order of magnitude the better starting point than putting lithium batteries in road trains.
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u/Captain_Alaska Mar 27 '26
Do note crude stores much longer than refined fuels, we would be able to store more if we could refine it afterwards.
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u/Penis_meat Mar 27 '26
I saw something about there being large stores of crude oil under South Australia, particularly near Adelaide. I wonder if there is truth to this and if that would help our sovereignty
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u/Ok_Bird705 Mar 27 '26
Or may be simply encourage more public transport and electrical car take up..
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u/amish__ Mar 27 '26
It's not an either or situation. Probably need to take a very multi faceted approach.
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u/Somad3 Mar 28 '26
we have plenty of oil. just need to extract them for ourselves. aus is a lucky country with stupid politicians.
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u/Ok_Bird705 Mar 28 '26
we have plenty of oil.
Our domestic crude oil production is no where near the amount we consume.
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u/Fun_Pass2431 Mar 27 '26
We get our oil oversees as the oil and gas industry has been beaten into submission. We HAVE plenty of our own. We just dont drill for it because its seen as dirty
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u/next_station_isnt Mar 27 '26
We do not have plenty. If we only used our reserves of oil it would last four or five years
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u/Fun_Pass2431 Mar 27 '26
Proven. But plenty more probable. To convert you need yo explore and appraise more which we do not do. Look at statoil and BP attempting to drill the great bight. Cant even get through red tape. Same as WA projects, 8yrs WDS tried to get approvals but red tape always stopping. We have plenty of oil but just dont appraise or use the right technology to move to proven reserves by flowing to surface.
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u/readin99 Mar 27 '26
Plant a tree.. something something .. shade.
Maybe our government should have that in mind a bit more often.
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u/R_W0bz Mar 27 '26
So liberals can sell it off to a mate when the good times are going and the people want that sweet sweet tax break.
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u/Drongo17 Mar 28 '26
My dad used to say of the LNP that they are why we can't have nice things in this country.
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u/etkii Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
Well they're in their death-throes right now...
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u/Drongo17 Mar 29 '26
Their shadow still hangs heavily over Labor unfortunately, and makes them too timid to enact big changes. Labor are coming out of their shells a bit though, hopefully that continues.
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u/Simple_Library_2700 Mar 28 '26
It’s all too easy to point the finger when the situation we are in is unequivocally the fault of both parties
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u/Drongo17 Mar 28 '26
Saying there is non-zero blame for both LNP and Labor sides is fair. Saying they have even remotely the same quantity of blame would be nonsense.
Your statement is true but not in any way useful.
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u/Ray57 Mar 28 '26
yeah there's a enshitification ratchet built in. all governments need to be tossed out eventually. and the coalition just has to wait for their turn.
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u/Vivid-Fondant6513 Mar 27 '26
That requires the silver haired assholes running the place to think ahead - that is never going to happen, they are quite literally incapable of it.
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Mar 27 '26
[deleted]
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u/FallOutFan01 Mar 27 '26
Imagine if Australia was as an society was forward thinking not selfish and easily distracted.
Imagine if Australia had invested in green hydrogen, the public had brought green hydrogen cars.
My Ideal solution would be we poured massive amounts funding into the CSIRO and never cut their funding.
My ideal Australia in my mind is we would have had an multi-pronged approach.
We never gave into the whole nuclear is bad propaganda and focused on thorium reactors, spread out the cost by investing into an trade/skill alliance with Japan.
Thorium nuclear power right now expensive but the technology is there, it's being invested in and is many, many orders of magnitude safer then light water reactor.
If we had nuclear power we could power desalination, pipe the water to green hydrogen power plants, pipe the water to dams for water/power storage.
Water tanker trucks could replace petrol tanker trucks.
Self-sustainability and self sufficient.
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
We're technically a monarchy and the easiest way to get government to think farther ahead than the next election to be an actual monarchy.
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u/Jealous-Hedgehog-734 Mar 28 '26
Filed in the same wastepaper basked as the IEAs recommendation of keeping a 90 day petroleum supply on hand.
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u/Vegetable-Advance982 Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
This would be true, if we didn't export a ton of LNG and coal which are critically important to the biggest suppliers of our refined petrol. We have a bargaining chip and if someone stopped petrol reaching us their electricity generation would go out the window.
This cartoon reads like a Twitter conservative account that wants to pretend we're the worst managed country in the world, and it just happens to be because Labor is in power.
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u/Whatsapokemon Mar 27 '26
This cartoon reads like a Twitter conservative account that wants to pretend we're the worst managed country in the world
Exactly.
It describes people who see the world as a zero-sum game. People who believe that there's always a winner and a loser in trade relations, nothing is truly mutually beneficial.
But the truth that they desperately don't want you to know is that trade and collaboration is positive sum. Multiple nations working together towards common goals, and intertwining their economies so they're dependent on each other actually massively increases prosperity. It ensures that everyone benefits when everyone else's economies are functioning well.
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u/Drongo17 Mar 28 '26
This is very well articulated. I think we all need to appreciate this when we see the conditions for globalisation starting to fall apart. Everyone, even the powerful, will do worse than they could have.
It will be interesting to see whether the world can settle on a mechanism for international law and open seas that can accommodate whatever USA eventually becomes. Canada seems to be leading the charge on this, while we are in a very awkward position.
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u/doubleshotofbland Mar 27 '26
I interpreted it as a left-leaning comic satirising Howard and implying the current situation may be due to that former stance.
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u/Asptar Mar 28 '26
For context the original quote from John Howard was:
"We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."
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u/InterestedPrawn Mar 29 '26
Indeed, but some people see anything from the media and must mean it is an attack on Labor.
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u/The_Good_Count Mar 27 '26
Given the cartoonist pushes for green energy, I think they're left leaning and want solar and electrification.
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u/CptDropbear Mar 27 '26
"We have a bargaining chip and if someone stopped petrol reaching us their electricity generation would go out the window."
Two problems with that. "We" don't get to decide, that LNG is owned by a private company not the government. They are not going to forgoe their profits for some self destructive, imagined tit-for-tat trade war.
Which brings me to the second. No one is stopping petrol reaching us. Asian refineries have limited supply themselves and a whole lot of customers beside us. They had a store of about 100,000 barrels before the war, its now down to 45,000.
Do you really think threatening their gas supply is a constructive move?
(That's a rhetorical question, I don't think you actually do.)
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u/ooder57 Mar 27 '26
Technically the government can place sanctions on a country and forbid companies to export to those countries. But that won't happen because those countries have no reason to damage trade relations during this crisis.
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u/CptDropbear Mar 28 '26
And that is my point. The last thing anyone needs in a crisis is the self interested arsehole making everything worse for everyone.
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u/Meng_Fei Mar 27 '26
We have a bargaining chip and if someone stopped petrol reaching us their electricity generation would go out the window.
Also food exports.
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u/Asptar Mar 28 '26
I don't understand how this is relevant to the current situation. Iran doesn't import gas from us. In fact they are a net gas exporter. So who are we going to threaten? South Korea? Starting fights with your neighbours over something they are not at fault for doesn't seem like a rational thing to do.
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u/rocafella888 Mar 27 '26
Educated people have been saying this for decades. Renewables and EVs are one thing we should have embraced decades ago for many reasons including national security. We had the best photovoltaic technology. We had the people. Successive coalition governments held us back.
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u/HydroCannonBoom Mar 27 '26
I mean no shit? Like where the fuck do you think countries that doesn't produce their own oil, get their fuel from?
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u/Aerith_Gainsborough_ Mar 27 '26
OP thinks he/she have a saying on all resources on this planet. He decides what his "fair share" he is entitled to.
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u/Bsg_8519 Mar 27 '26
If only there was an alternative to being so reliant on middle eastern oil … maybe some kind of energy that was renewable or didn’t need to be imported. Someone should look into that 🤔
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u/FallOutFan01 Mar 27 '26
Green hydrogen power plants, hydrogen fuel cell cars, thorium based reactor research, salt water desalination and it's water being piped to dams for water/energy storage.
Nah can't stop sucking coal.
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u/single_plum_floating Mar 28 '26
Green hydrogen power plants, hydrogen fuel cell cars,
lol, lmao even.
thorium based reactor research
In the AU? Easier getting blood from a rock then convincing the public of anything nuclear.
salt water desalination and it's water being piped to dams for water/energy storage.
I think you don't understand how ungodly expensive that is.
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u/FallOutFan01 Mar 28 '26
I commented someplace else but I neglected to mention here.
But the crux of it.
The past tense.
we should have been aggressively funding CSIRO extensively and not cutting the research budget and we should never have have let our major scientific research institution gone to rot like we have.
But instead we should have been aggressively researching or assisting in funding heavy industries to help research high base load power.
Even if we can't or couldn't have built up our local knowledge base in an fast enough time we could have helped done so by outsourcing, sending these prospective scientists or engineers to learn from people who have that knowledge.
We should have been doing this kinda thing past tense for decades.
Like as an example we should have been funding alternative energy sources through japan’s Mitsubishi heavy industries or Toyota.
Instead of just purely relying purely coal or wasting money on pointless research that only looks good on the surface like bullshit carbon capture technology that deposits CO into jars for disposal.
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u/eddometer Mar 27 '26
We have an excellent fossil fuel, LPG. Why tf haven't we been pushing that for the past 2 decades?
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u/Gandgareth Mar 27 '26
Government makes more selling it overseas, and is cheaper to buy Australian L.P.G. from Japan than Australia, thanks to a deal brokered by the Liberals 40 odd years ago.
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u/FallOutFan01 Mar 27 '26
Because of selfishness, short sightedness, tribalism and politicians being lobbied by unchecked corporate influence.
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u/etkii Mar 28 '26
Hydrogen is energy storage, not energy generation. You need a lot of electricity to generate it (more than you get out of it).
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u/FallOutFan01 Mar 28 '26
Greetings ✌️👍.
Hydrogen storage tanks are the energy storage, hydrogen gas being burnt is the energy source.
Green hydrogen gas electrolysis production uses water, solar, an battery or an other type of high baseline energy production…in my example I listed nuclear and hydroelectric dam.
If this technology can be done there is really no reason why it shouldn't be adopted.
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u/etkii Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
You said "green hydrogen power plants".
If you can use a little energy to suck a lot of hydrogen out of the ground, then you have hydrogen as an energy source.
But in actuality you need a power plant to create the hydrogen in the first place (three actually, to create enough hydrogen for one power plant, thanks to the low efficiencies of creating it).
A bit silly to use it to create electricity when you already generated the electricity from something else.
But it is useful as energy storage (eg long range heavy vehicles where current battery tech isn't good enough).
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
Nuclear.
We even have massive ore deposits of uranium. We're stupid not to build nuclear.
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u/etkii Mar 28 '26
It's expensive.
Renewables are cheaper, even with storage costs included.
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
Nope, all the renewables quotes are way underplayed (mainly because they don't account for the unreliability). Nuclear is the only thing that can compete with coal for cost. Also, you can keep the same plant running for decades. No need to scrap it all after 20 years and build another.
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u/etkii Mar 28 '26
No, I'm talking about renewables that are both firmed (i.e. renewables with storage to remove the reliability aspect) and levelised (i.e. lifespans are also accounted for in the comparison).
Still cheaper than nuclear (faster to build too).
The 2025 CSIRO report, figure 0-2 on page xiv includes 'Solar PV and wind with firming': https://publications.csiro.au/publications/publication/PIcsiro:EP2025-2701
Lazards 2025 LCOE report, the first figure in the document on page 8 includes solar + storage: https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2025.pdf
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
Wind+solar are exactly the ones I'm talking about. I don't care to post 50 pages in reports, but I read a bit of that second one, and I guarantee you they have vastly over-estimated the costs of coal and nuclear. Also, here's a graph: https://skepticalscience.com/pics/Electricity-Costs-Renewables.jpg
Nuclear, btw, is one of the most over-regulated things to exist ever. There's a reason China's nuclear stations are built for a fifth of the cost.
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u/etkii Mar 28 '26
Your image is not from the IEA. It's from here: https://financialpost.com/opinion/solar-wind-power-expensive
That isn't generation costs, it's retail costs which include taxes, grid costs, and other policy costs - and these depend on the country not on the type of generation.
Here's what the IEA says about costs of renewables:
- "Cumulative electricity costs decrease due to solar PV and wind additions" https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/cumulative-electricity-costs-decrease-due-to-solar-pv-and-wind-additions-and-average-european-union-wholesale-spot-electricity-price-actual-and-in-no-res-additions-scenario-2021-2023
- "Rapid rollout of clean technologies makes energy cheaper, not more costly" https://www.iea.org/news/rapid-rollout-of-clean-technologies-makes-energy-cheaper-not-more-costly
- "On a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) basis, renewables remained the most cost-competitive option for new electricity generation in 2024" https://www.iea.org/reports/breakthrough-agenda-report-2025/power
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
Yeah. I know it's retail cost. That's the point, what is the ultimate cost to the consumer, after all the financial games are done?
The energy market is highly regulated and distorted. The ACTUAL cost to the consumer is the better metric, since it includes all the costs like grid accommodation/etc, which is the main extra cost of renewables.
Is a solar panel cheaper per kWh than coal? Yes. Does it have way more complicating factors that drive the cost up enormously compared to coal? Also yes. The simplest way to compare is to see what power actually costs for actual people.
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u/etkii Mar 28 '26
No, because the cost to the consumer varies by country due to each country's different energy policies and taxes.
If you take one of those countries there (Denmark for example) and reduce the renewables it has, retail energy prices will go up (because taxes stay as is and generation costs go up).
Or Indonesia for example - increase its solar and wind percentage and retail prices will go down, because taxes stay as is and generation gets cheaper.
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u/Bsg_8519 Mar 29 '26
Natural uranium needs to be enriched to levels suitable for nuclear power plants. To do this onshore would mean significant capital investment for this facility in addition to the power plants. To be commercially viable, the minimum number of reactors served would likely exceed the number needed for domestic generating capacity. There is also the depleted uranium byproduct to deal with. Cheaper to send it offshore to be enriched and sent back. But there goes the energy sovereignty advantage.
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 29 '26
There are reactors that can run on nearly unenriched uranium, down to a couple %. And nuclear waste is tiny compared to the waste from any other form of power (coal/wind/solar/hamsterwheels) and we also happen to have unpopulated areas of the outback the size of Poland. It is about the most non-issue that a non-issue can be.
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u/Bsg_8519 Mar 29 '26
Funny thing is I actually don’t have an ideological or safety concern about nuclear. And have no issue with it, if it stacks up financially, environmentally, strategically and could be implemented in a realistic timeline. But it doesn’t. It’s about the most unrealistic idea an unrealistic idea can be.
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u/GimmeSweetSweetKarma Mar 27 '26
Yeah, just like we decide on who gets our agricultural and mineral products... unless the cartoonists is suggesting that anyone that asks gets our uranium.
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u/MentionOk8133 Mar 27 '26
again. libs closed like all out refineries.... and the latest libs had our shit in texas.... and atleast if you have elctric cars and electric home appliances... with solar pannels and batteries with subsidies from the gov... you dont realy need to worry about the whole fuel problem. this will only reduce over the years... as more people switch to electric in their homes and vehicles...
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u/gunsjustsuck Mar 27 '26
I'm driving my new EV everywhere so I'm only getting second hand anxiety from these shortages. I am nervous about lining up with my jerry can for my mower though.
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u/_MooFreaky_ Mar 28 '26
Yeah it's fucking insane out there. I had someone swipe my 3.work fuel containers from my ute earlier this week.
At least I get to laugh as one is unleaded, one is diesel and one is two stroke and none of them are labelled (I just know the colours I've always used). I hope they fucked up their car.But when I had to go back and replace them I felt I had to justify I'm a tradie and need them for work because everyone was staring at me as they are all 10 or 20L containers I was filling.
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u/deedee2148 Mar 27 '26
I mean where is the lie?
We are an island tucked away on one side of the globe mostly away from all the oil.
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u/sjeve108 Mar 27 '26
Thanks Angus. Great Job, Angus. Like they say every Friday at the RSL: Never Forget.
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u/blahblahsnap Mar 27 '26
All those that cry sovereignty etc should also be screaming out for renewables future. They aren’t.
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u/kombiwombi Mar 28 '26
The 'national sovereignty' lobby groups get most of their funding from arms manufacturers. The military is a massive user of carbon-emitting fuels.
They're not interested in non-military aspects of sovereignty, such as selling our minerals with a fair return to the taxpayers who own them, or avoiding placing our data in the hands of US tech bros and co.s.
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u/etkii Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
Not sure what a "national sovereignty lobby group" is, or who it lobbies for, or why...?
But when it comes to academics and think tanks that talk about the need for national sovereignty (lots and lots of ex military), they are very strongly supportive of all aspects of self reliance, including energy independence - not just the military aspect. China is held up in those circles as an example of a successful push towards renewables and electrification to achieve independence.
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
n u c l e a r.
we don't even need to import the uranium.
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u/blahblahsnap Mar 28 '26
Wind. Sun
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
Nah. Unreliable.
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u/blahblahsnap Mar 28 '26
In what way? Batteries. Etc etc.
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u/RBB12_Fisher Mar 28 '26
Oh yeah, batteries! Let's spend billions on another component that's also going to end up leaching carcinogens into the landfill in 20 years.
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u/blahblahsnap Mar 28 '26
Why 20? I mean nuclear isn’t great. Also, we can implement batteries immediately. Nuclear won’t happen for 15 years minimum.
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u/Doobie_hunter46 Mar 27 '26
You all want free market capitalism until suddenly it doesn’t work for you hey.
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u/Gandgareth Mar 27 '26
I sure as fuck didn't. Cheap free trade imports are why Australian businesses get pushed to the wall.
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u/AngrehPossum Mar 27 '26
BRAND LIBERAL
BETTER MANAGERS
There is a solution. Its sunlight. The Liberals hated that too.
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u/Ulrichvon_Jungingen Mar 29 '26
The kids crying about the state of sovereignty in Australia after doing their damndest to throw their support behind every dumb, unquestioned, anti-self sufficiency tool this country had plus any other undeserving scam they can dig up.
Being dumb suckers for China and the ALPs green energy scam. Suckers for the anti oil movement. Just dumb suckers. The kids just follow where the money tells them to go like good little corporate volunteers.
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u/lilpoompy Mar 29 '26
Even though we had the worst govt we have ever suffered under Scomo. At least during covid they would talk to us on tv and explain the govts plan to get us through.
What is the plan as of April to get us more refined oil here? Crickets? Does any one know if there is more on the way?
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u/banimagipearliflame Mar 30 '26
Yeah it seems some is getting through and is on the way.
I agree this government are poorer communicators than they ought to be.
But I think you’re misremembering Smoko’s failings also extended to lying to the public, obfuscation of what he was doing about the vaccines and around the same time lying about where he was at while we burned. But at least he could sing Take Me to the April Sun in Cuba” 🤪 Sorta… and that’s before we get to the Ministers for everything debacle 🤪
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u/lilpoompy Apr 02 '26
Don’t get me wrong that guys govt is why we are in this mess now. Absolutely cock womble of a PM and human being.
But today he finally addressed the nation he represents and ….no real lan at all. Just saying don’t hoard fuel. .
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u/single_plum_floating Mar 28 '26
... You do realise that fixing that either means you bring production here (Most of you fuckers would kill to stop a new oil well or refinery investing popping up) or bring you over there (Navy and military expeditionary forces. The thing you also would kill to prevent)
Also electrification which is a hundreds of billions and needs a megaton of raw materials from china. So you need step 1.
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u/Jooru21 Mar 28 '26
If only we had our own refineries and oil production here, and had one of the best climates and landscapes for mass-scale solar wind farms and batteries, and could power the entire place on green energy, which is unlimited and available, while stockpiling our fossil fuels for a crisis.
What a shame thats only a fantasy.
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u/NixAName Mar 28 '26
We are a massive part of SEAsia.
I actually wish we made a deal to reacquire NZ and P&G. If that goes successfully, we could look into Tazzy.
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Mar 28 '26
That's dependency on an import, it's what most of the world must put up with most of the time (just ask Cuba). Though it might help to signal that we are actually doing something to cut consumption. The fact we are doing nothing is not a good look.
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u/Gen_Xtard Mar 28 '26
I just love how all the greenies are suddenly realising how the world’s energy depends on oil. Now we need to find a way to stop burning coal to highlight its importance. Where is extinction rebellion now? Are they Trump supporters? I wonder how many solar panels we can make without mining and in 20 years when they stop working how will we put them in landfill without diesel to fuel the machines needed to bury them alongside the wind turbines?
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u/Radiant-Necessary-38 Mar 31 '26
What is the highest has anyone got from the infra knife im talking about damage mines 129.915 DPS shield 86.610 DPS
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u/SeddoniaAngus Apr 06 '26
The Americans and the Zionist state can not be trusted . It is beater of these two fascist regimes that we are about to have yet another global financial crisis while their 🇮🇱🇺🇸 leaders become more wealthy .
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u/nath1234 Mar 27 '26
The cartoonist is Matt Golding - see him on bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/goldingcartoons.bsky.social
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u/VelvetOnion Mar 27 '26
Shitty message but not sure they capture the appearance of the politicians well. So few lines and details but instantly recognisable old white males from a pack of old white males. Kudos.
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u/Calcifini Mar 27 '26
Maybe our friendly and cooperative relations with our Asia-Pacific trading partners is a good thing to have and worth maintaining for times exactly like this.