E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS 24 – AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
MONDAY, 16 MARCH 2026
Subjects: Fuel security, Middle East war, International Energy Agency, fuel shortages
PATRICIA KARVELAS (HOST): The New South Wales Government has today held a round table on fuel security with representatives from the farming, mining and transport industries. For more on the fuel situation, I want to bring in Assistant Energy Minister, Josh Wilson. Welcome to the program.
JOSH WILSON: Thanks, Patricia. Good to be with you.
KARVELAS: Is it reasonable to keep blaming the coalition for their management of fuel in the past, when what’s important now is how we deal with the crisis?
WILSON: Well, we are very focused on dealing with the circumstances that arise out of a war in the Middle East. It’s circumstances that has seen the International Energy Agency take historic collective action, releasing more than 400 million barrels of stock holding obligation fuel into the system to deal with that crisis. We’ve always been really upfront about that. We haven’t looked to compare and contrast with the coalition all that much, but we have been prepared to point to the facts and to be critical of their tendency to play politics all the time. The little clip you played before with Barnaby Joyce as a One Nation representative, but frankly, the coalition have been no better. It’s like in other areas of Australian life, they seem to like to revel in difficulty and try and make political progress for themselves out of a difficult time. We’re very focused on the challenge and taking a series of practical steps, collectively with the states and territories, with importers and refiners and wholesalers and everyone to deal with a challenge in the Australian way.
KARVELAS: Do you accept, though, that in some regional and rural communities, there’s stories, for instance, in Victoria’s far northwest, the business owners saying they have not seen anything like this, in terms of their shortage for 25 years. Do you accept that that’s happening?
WILSON: Of course I accept it, and it goes back to the point I just made. We’ve got a war in the Middle East. The International Energy Agency, which is the global organisation that helps manage these kinds of issues when they arise, which fortunately, aren’t very common. They’ve just undertaken the largest collective action in the history of the IEA. We see that very clearly. That’s why Minister Bowen took some steps last Thursday in terms of the minimum stock holding obligation, the fuel standards requirements. You know, we are focused on addressing the impact of a global challenge, a global crisis here in Australia, in a sensible cooperative way.
KARVELAS: So, will fuel rationing potentially be necessary?
WILSON: No, well, we’re not contemplating that, that that was part of Barnaby Joyce’s alarmist agenda.
KARVELAS: So you’re ruling out, just to be clear, that we were going to need to fuel ration?
WILSON: We’re not talking about fuel rationing because, at the moment, the supply of fuel is not the problem. The problem is localised shortages and supply chain issues. You know, we’ve seen demand spike in some parts by more than 100% – now that consumption is not lifted by 100%, people aren’t using more fuel – that they’re going and acquiring more fuel by a significant factor because of the uncertainty. Now we understand that. That’s why the steps that we’re taking are targeted at addressing those things. The minimum stock holding relaxation, 20% of our stock holding flowing into the market on the basis that that is focused on regional and rural Australia, where this issue is sharpest.
KARVELAS: Okay, but right now, fuel is available on the market. The Australian Government obviously has huge purchasing power. Should we go out and replenish the fuel that we have? Clearly now just put into what we’re about to put into the market from our reserve to try and deal with this situation, even if it is being sold at ridiculous prices.
WILSON: The amount of fuel that we hold in Australia is significant, certainly a lot more than was available under the coalition, and fuel is still arriving and being refined in Australia. So those parts of the system are working well, but we’ve got these localised shortages, which are a factor of supply chain challenges, and those really, really big surges in localised demand. That’s why we’re taking these measured steps in a sensible, collaborative way, not just the government, not just the Federal Government, states and territories, the road freight peaks, the National Farmers Federation, the refiners, the importers, working together in a way that, frankly, I think we should expect, as Australians. This is a big global challenge, the largest that the IEA has ever faced, but we have the opportunity to go about it in a sensible, collaborative, cooperative, communicative, Australian way, where we say, where is the problem and how do we fix it, and let’s fix it together. Now we are doing that. Mr. Bowen is on that all day every day.
KARVELAS: Do you concede, though, that at the beginning of last week, the government was saying, not a problem, and then the language changed, and that people have noticed that, and think, hang on a minute. That’s two different messages.
WILSON: No, look, I mean, this is an evolving situation. We’ve always said that [interrupted]
KARVELAS: When you from the start of last week to the end of last week wasn’t hugely evolving. That was a completely different argument being put by the government. Why not just say, yeah, we kind of should have just been more upfront.
WILSON: Well, you’d probably have to give me some terminological examples. I mean, from the outset, we were saying that this is a challenge that needs to be dealt with. We had things under contemplation. You obviously don’t necessarily take every step from one day to the other. You consider them and then you deploy them in a measured way, noting that confidence and a sort of a sense of that orderly tackling of a problem is actually part of the solution. We had that experience during COVID. If you want to be a panic merchant, as some people do for their own political benefits, you are making the problem worse. We have been sober and steady and focused. We do the work to understand what the potential solutions are, and then Minister Bowen announced some of them last Thursday.
KARVELAS: Well, are there more things under consideration?
WILSON: Those things are going to make a significant positive difference, particularly in addressing those localised shortages. We don’t think that that demand spike will continue. There were people who are justifiably concerned, and they went out and purchased a lot more fuel than they would ordinarily do. They’re not using more fuel than they would ordinarily do. So, you’d expect that that would even out.
KARVELAS: Would you say the worst is over?
WILSON: No, it’s not for me to say that, because what is causing this issue is a war in the Middle East that Australia does not control. So, you know, for anyone to be Nostradamus and try to say from one day to the next, when we’re experiencing an unprecedented situation, wouldn’t be responsible.
KARVELAS: New South Wales has today, the government has convened this urgent meeting. Do you think other state governments need to do the same? Or should it be happening even at a federal level?
WILSON: Well, it is happening at a federal level. So those conversations are going on all day, every day, as I said before, we are working very concertedly with states and territories, with the relevant peak organisations and with every part of the fuel supply chain, I guess it is for state governments to consider how they might want to approach it. I can understand why New South Wales would have taken that step, but that’s really for state and territory governments to determine.
KARVELAS: Thank you so much for your time.
WILSON: Thanks Patricia.
ENDS
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