petey

Australia lost 44 merchant ships to enemy action in World War II. Many of these were tankers, either importing fuel from abroad (Australia then, as now, had little domestic production) or transporting it domestically from southern population centres to northern operating theatres. Each loss represented weeks of supply; the “small” overall number masks the outsize impact - both practical and psychological - on a nation suddenly exposed and far from its great-power protector. After the war, Australia moved decisively to reduce that vulnerability. We developed oil and gas resources. We built refineries in every major city. By the 1970s, we had a level of fuel security that previous generations would have recognised as hard-won. But the long peace made us complacent. As globalisation and large offshore refineries eroded the competitiveness of local plants, we allowed them to close. Efficiency improved on paper. Resilience declined in reality. Today therefore, as the world again enters a great period of geopolitical upheaval, Australia inexcusably finds herself in a position of vulnerability, uncomfortably similar to that faced in 1940. “We can just use our LNG exports as leverage to secure diesel shipments” is the same logic that once assumed supply lines would always hold. We now know how that story ends. We need to restore sovereign, domestic capability in the fuels that keep our country running.