The days of a cheap cappuccino, a familiar, affordable morning habit, are a rapidly fading memory, a quaint artefact of an era unlikely to return. Today, Canberrans stepping up to local café counters are being met with an unwelcome, if unavoidable, new reality: a temporary fuel levy tacked onto their morning brew.

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While paying an extra 5 per cent for Steve Martin's famous "half-double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon" might seem like a minor inconvenience, this surcharge represents much more than the rising price of a caffeine hit. It is the canary in the coal mine for the wider economy, and a stark warning of the broader financial pain hurtling toward consumers as a direct consequence of the war in Iran.

It is easy to look at the raw consumables in a flat white and assume café owners earn a massive margin. The reality is far more sobering. Once one factors in the cost of a barista's time, wait staff, escalating rent, insurance, and other overheads, these mostly small businesses operate on notoriously wafer-thin profit margins. For many, the fragile difference between a profit and a loss is tiny.

These local traders are currently wedged between a rock and a hard place. As the Middle East conflict continues to push the wholesale price of diesel well past three dollars a litre, transport operators are bleeding money. Trucking companies are projecting massive excess fuel costs, forcing them to slap fuel levies of nearly 30 per cent onto their freight deliveries just to survive. It is a classic........

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