Andrew Chuter, a public and active transport campaigner and Socialist Alliance activist, warns that the federal Labor government’s decision to temporarily halve the fuel excise and cut the heavy vehicle road user charge to zero for three months may worsen the impact of the Iran war fuel crisis.

“At a time when there’s an oil shortage, you want to find alternative ways of getting people moving people and freight around — preferably on public transport or electrified rail freight and other methods. What the government has just done does not make any sense.”

Theoretically, halving the fuel excise should mean save drivers 26.3 cents on the cost of a litre of petrol. However, Chuter said, going on past experience there is no guarantee that the oil companies will fully pass this cut on to consumers.

“They generally like to ramp up their prices and make super profits at times like this. We’ve seen price gouging happen already in the current shortage.

“We also saw this during the oil shortages at the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine. At that time, United States oil companies made huge super profits. The US is relatively cushioned from global oil shortages, because it has its own supplies. The super........

© Green Left Weekly