Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Cabinet Secretary
Shadow Assistant Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations
Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT
TODAY WITH SYLVIA JEFFREYS AND DAN REPACHOLI
Tuesday, 7 April 2026
Topics: Fuel shortages; war in Iran; Artemis II spaceflight mission.
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: Welcome back. There are fresh concerns for Australia’s fuel crisis this morning, with experts now warning fuel rationing will likely be unavoidable if the war in the Middle East stretches beyond this week. Joining us to discuss today’s headlines is Labor MP Dan Repacholi and Shadow Assistant Minister for Employment Zoe McKenzie. Morning to you both and thanks for joining us. Dan, I’ll go to you first. You’re an honest guy, you don’t beat around the bush, so can you just be straight with us? Is fuel rationing the next step and when will it begin?
DAN REPACHOLI: Look right now, Sylvia, we’ve just going to continue to work with what we do know, and we do know that we have ships, constant ships coming in through that May time. So nobody knows any further than that, we only have 30 days in advance of our fuel deliveries of what is going on in this space. And whilst what is happening over there in the Middle East is continually going, we really don’t know where it will end, and what I plead to everybody is, and to all Aussies, is just use whatever fuel you need. Don’t get more than you need but also don’t get less than you need as well. Just continue to go out there, live your day-to-day life, because we do continually have ships coming in, so make sure you just keep doing what you do.
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: But you must have a contingency plan beyond mid-May if the ships stop coming. So is that contingency plan fuel rationing, and when does it begin?
DAN REPACHOLI: So, of course, there’s been plans worked on behind the scenes and there’s not a single doubt in the world on that. But what we do know is until mid-May that we’re going OK and we’ll continue to monitor the situation as it happens, and to every Aussie out there, I know it’s hard for us to get our heads around, but this is the way the fuel supply has always worked and has worked in this country for a long time, so we’ll continue to work with that. But we need to reassure Aussies as well that if there are going to be changes made, then we do need to communicate them well, and that’s why I’ll come on this show and I’ll do it every time.
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: I guess that’s the thing, a lot of Aussies, they just want to mentally prepare for what’s next, Zoe. What more would you like to see from the government at this point?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, I wish the rest of the government would reflect Dan’s honesty, like you said, we don’t know what happens after May, and that’s the problem. Not so much for households, a lot of people do depend on having fuel. But what really needs it is our farmers and our businesses. They need to know they’re going to keep being able to fill up. So that’s the key issue. What certainty we can give them, so that we can be sure we’re going to have food on the table in four months’ time.
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: The SMH this morning, Dan, is reporting that the New South Wales government is using commercial data from fuel companies to work out if fuel supplies will remain stable. WA’s already enacted emergency powers. Do you get the feeling, the sense, that the states don’t trust the federal government to handle this on their own?
DAN REPACHOLI: States are doing their part in this as well, and I do take my hat off to the New South Wales state government on this and getting the information that they’re getting from the fuel companies to make sure that they know where fuel is going all around their state. And what WA has done, they couldn’t get that information from the fuel companies like what they have here in New South Wales, so I do take my hat off to Chris Minns and his team for being proactive and actually getting on top of this and giving everybody the information they need, including us federally, so that we can make sure that we are making the right decisions with the fuel that is coming into this country.
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: Well, I’m not sure how much comfort came from Donald Trump’s press conference this morning, Zoe. Everyone in the world right now is desperate for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen, but he has really doubled down, in fact, even ramped up his threats against Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. How confident are you that this conflict will be over by the end of this week?
ZOE MCKENZIE: I’m not confident at all, I think a lot of the work that often goes into major conflicts like this in terms of consultation with allies in this case was not done. So, we’re in a fairly unpredictable environment, and you’re right, 80% of the fuel that goes around the world comes from that particular area. So it’s a very unknown quantity, I think we’ve had three sets of deadlines now. None of them have been met to date. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, but this is not what you’d call a moderated methodological plan. The suggestion that he’ll take out power and bridges, means it’ll get worse before it gets better.
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: OK, I want to just very quickly finish on something positive this morning, Dan, because as we go to air, and we reflect on a lot of very challenging things in the world right now, four human beings are right now orbiting the moon, and it’s pretty cool when you think about all of it. Dan, doesn’t that give you a little bit of faith in humankind?
DAN REPACHOLI: It certainly does, Sylvia, like, four people up there in the middle of nowhere, the furthest it’s ever been away from this Earth is absolutely cool. But there is a lot more questions than answers sometimes in this space. One of them is how do they go to the toilet? I know many Aussies are asking that right now in this morning. When they’re waking up thinking, I’ve just gone to the toilet, what happens to you? How do they do that, Zoe? Zoe, you’ve got thoughts?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, I have one thought for the whole endeavour, which is, as Barbie would say, yay, space. But thinking less about the toilets and more about that beautiful man who named a crater after his passed-away wife, Carroll, this morning. So, Crater Carroll. I’m not sure I’d want to have a crater named after me, but I love that that’s the bee’s knees for him.
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: Well, they described it as a bright spot, and you can only imagine what his teenage daughters back on Earth are thinking about all of that. Dan and Zoe, thank you both so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
ENDS.
