Australia can’t outbid a blockade

Regulation should protect environmental and safety outcomes, not preserve obsolete technological categories.

Finally, fuel resilience should not be confused with decarbonisation.

Some technologies will advance both objectives, and where they do, that is highly desirable. But they are different policy questions. Decarbonisation asks how much carbon a fuel emits. Fuel security asks whether Australia can obtain the fuel when international supply is disrupted.

The lesson from the recent crisis is not that Australia's fuel system failed. It is that the system worked because Australia remained a wealthy buyer in a functioning international market.

We should not assume the next crisis will give us the same luxury.

A stockpile buys time. Domestic production buys options.