Nation deserves clear, hard truths on energy future

April 4, 2026 — 4:50am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Save this article for later

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.

Speaking to the National Press Club on Thursday following his televised national address the previous evening, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese portrayed himself as a voice of calm in a maelstrom of misinformation.

“I took the opportunity to talk directly to the nation,” he told assembled journalists. “That is more important than ever because the nature of noise that is out there, the conspiracy theories that are out there, which propagate, which we can’t do anything about.”

Three minutes of soothing rhetoric alone are unlikely to counteract the news ordinary Australians are “getting … on their device”, as Albanese put it. But clearly the federal government sees the speech as part of a suite of measures to assuage mounting public anxiety over the effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Headlining the package is the decision to give motorists back 32¢ on every litre of petrol bought through a cut to excise and redirection of GST revenues. Like the prime minister’s speech, this is meant to reassure but raises fresh fears, not least over the effect on inflation and then interest rates.

At the same time as........

© Brisbane Times