Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed the government will halve the fuel excise for a three-month period.
It means the cost of petrol and diesel will be reduced by 26.3 cents per litre for a three-month period.
"We're making fuel cheaper today because we understand that Australians are under serious pressure," he says.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-30/federal-politics-live-blog-albanese-fuel-national-cabinet/106509730#live-blog-post-278141
38 Comments
Dumb. Wrong. No.
In before wholesalers put the prices up 27c.
The real question is, will the cost reduction be passed down to the public?
This is the best thing to do to ratchet down demand, right?
The diesel prices around me have jumped 25c since Friday, so this just unwinds 3 days of price growth (if it gets passed on at all)
Moronic. Great way to deal with a supply issue is to induce demand by reducing the price.
Just hand the money direct to Shell next time.
Now there’s a dumb idea. Fuels demand, disproportionately benefits the top end of town, blows a hole in the budget at a time when the broader economic outlook is deteriorating and the cost of taking on further debt is going up… where’s that GIF of Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake when you need it?
Yay, the morons of Australia won
Brought to you by the big brains that gave us “we’ll make houses more affordable by increasing demand”, get ready for “we’ll reduce demand for petrol by lowering the price”.
I don’t understand people.
Prices spike because of psychopaths waging was in the middle east: “why won’t the government do anything about this?”
Government provides some relief: “this is shit and dumb”
I’m not an economist but doesn’t reducing the price only create further problems by the effect is has on raising demand?
If the issue really is purely demand related, this just adds to it. If the issue is supply related, increasing demand surely only exacerbates the problem?
I’ll believe it when I see it
These guys should be heavily encouraging wfh if we are cutting this, otherwise it’s just a windfall for the corporate bosses imo
So by the time it increases by April it will also go down to probably something still higher than today
That’s nice, implement a policy that will only work to increase public demand in petrol while there’s a supply shock. This will only guarantee that we get more petrol panic buying from people that don’t completely need it, and more supply outages. Well done.
Great. More taxpayer subsidies.
What the fuck is this supposed to do when retailers aren’t obligated to pass this on to consumers? We’re just crossing our fingers and saying pretty please?
Why is corporate welfare the primary lever that’s pulled when there is an economic crisis?
The ALP determined to prove they’re are dumb as the coalition.
If demand exceeds supply then decreasing the price will exacerbate the shortages.
That’ll lower demand
This doesn’t fix the problem.
The problem is diesel is scarce. Reducing the price won’t fix that. In fact it will do the opposite. What is likely to happen is that people in urban areas will keep filling their tanks and critical industries like farming and haulage will have to deal with increased scarcity.
I think a far better policy would be to leave the excise as is and provide rebates to critical industries.
This policy seems aimed squarely at voters in urban areas. The Albanese government appears to be hoping that war will be over soon and the status quo will return quickly.
Whatever they do, it’s gonna mean nothing if they don’t tax the gas companies. We luckily AGAIN in this world where gas has gone up AGAIN to be okay with tax income…
Shifting revenue from the government to the Giant Oils. Good job mate
Australian Public ” Please, sir, we’re suffering,”
Albo: “Best I can do is increase corporate profits “
Dumb.
It doesn’t conjure up more fuel. Lowering excise just removes a barrier for some people using petrol frivolously, taking from the stockpile others can’t go without.
They’d have been better off spending the same money on cost-of-living relief like power bill rebates or something.
Or two birds with one stone, include public transport fare cuts.
Stagflation here we come!
Should have just been dumped into free public transport, Ev leasing, adjusting WFH tax codes. Stuff that will actually have meaningful change. Not just allow a gap to be filled in pricing whilst draining the bank
How does this improve supply?
It’s a taxpayer subsidy for the highest volume users.
Expect prices to not come down.
Like in COVID time, the excise removal just went straight to petrol companies’ profits.
This is the opposite of what we should be doing, if there is in fact demand driven shortages. I hear people complaining a lot about petrol stations being out of fuel, how will reducing the price of it help with that? I’d bet it will do the opposite in fact, people will see the price drop and rush to get fuel while it’s cheaper.
Surely much better options would be around reducing usage of fuel, not making the limited stocks cheaper? Lots of people in the city can reduce their fuel consumption with simple steps, which could be encouraged by governments. We’re seeing some examples with free public transport already. Of course there’s working from home as well. Could be a “work from home first” policy across the public sector, reduce flights and car usage in that sector would free up a lot more fuel for those who can’t reduce their usage.
After all, reduced demand = lower prices. (Or so the RBA will argue)
Petrol stations are just gonna raise price right lol
Seven eleven fuel lock
This will be almost instantly swallowed up by the price increases.
It will do nothing except rob the road budget of funding.
Labor has fallen into the trap set by the LNP, now they will paint them as irresponsible for cutting the excise when it was obvious it would have no impact.
the important thing is they didn’t show imagination, come up with something substantive or do something with long term structural benefit. No surprises, as that great previous Labor PM said – we want a country where people feel relaxed and comfortable
What I don’t understand:
“Albanese adds that at this stage, every single ship that was due to arrive in March has arrived.”
If there’s no shortage, if all the fuel we ordered has arrived, why is Diesel now $3.15, up from $1.80 two weeks ago? Is that just petrol stations gouging? If so, are they actually going to pass on the excise cut?
I get a feeling we’re going to see the big oil companies reporting record profits at the end of the year…
Albo has been a huge disappointment, his entire MO is to head off the media narrative and avoid. His basically just doing what Murdoch wants him to do at this point. What a spinless PM that is going to waste the chance for real change before neo fascists get a foot hold in next election.
Every petrol station today puts their petrol price up by 26.3cents today, before the halving comes into place.
Nationalise the fuel industry, stop letting these greedy cunts win
Doesn’t this just induce more demand? The only people winning here are the bowser companies.