Australia is vulnerable. That’s not in doubt. Can our leaders keep us secure? We’re about to find out

April 4, 2026 — 5:00am

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Security is like oxygen, observed a guru of foreign affairs, the late Joseph Nye: “You tend not to notice it until you begin to lose it, but once that occurs, there is nothing else that you will think about.”

Australia now is getting a foretaste of that phenomenon. The complacency of governments Liberal and Labor has made Australia vulnerable. A few weeks of war in a faraway place and suddenly Australian food supply is in doubt. Not because we lack food; Australia produces enough to feed itself plus Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates combined, on a calorific basis, as an illustration.

Our food supply is in doubt because we can’t be sure of the fuel to grow it and deliver it. Australian nonchalance is so entrenched that even the hard lessons of the past few years have not been hard enough.

In six years, we’ve suffered three major trade and supply chain interruptions – the COVID cut-off, Chinese government trade coercion and irrational US tariff attacks – and learnt nothing. Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University’s National Security College calls it “preparedness amnesia”.

National security is not merely a defence force and a spy service. It’s a nation that makes itself secure. There is no national security without energy security, food security, economic resilience and preparedness for everything from terrorism to pandemic and cyberwar. People’s definition of successful national security? “The continuity of normal life,” says Medcalf.

Australia sailed gormlessly into today’s global crisis with fewer days’ fuel supply than any of the 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency. Australian oil stocks at the end of last year were enough for 49 days, according to IEA statistics. Second least prepared was New Zealand with 88. More realistic island nations’ reserves range from Britain’s 124 days to Japan’s 208.

Japan’s last ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, is a fan of our country but he nominates Australian complacency as our single greatest weakness. “In Australia,” he told me this week, “you have to get out of the inertia of the lucky country.”

The government’s explanation for feeble fuel........

© The Sydney Morning Herald