Australians are already suffering from ‘peak oil’

National figures for owner-drivers of transport vehicles indicate that more than 6,000 have left the industry in the past 12 months due to the high diesel prices. Many of these drivers would have lived in WA as the freight rail network there is only useful in the south-west corner of the state between Geraldton and Esperance.

Other sectors to have suffered include regional tourism with avgas (aviation gas) and avtur fuels costing more than US$100 a barrel. Regional fishing industries have also suffered as they are large consumers of diesel and many of their products are shipped overnight to South-East Asian markets by airfreight (see here for an article on similar pressures being felt in Africa). The rock lobster industry exports over $400 million in produce each year and has been particularly hard hit.

The recent Small Town Survival conference in York, WA, heard how higher petrol prices are driving people from small wheatbelt towns into Perth. This population trend has been evident for some time but higher oil prices have exacerbated it.

Inputs to the agricultural sector have risen by 30 per cent in the past year because many of them (such as fertiliser and herbicides) are based on oil. Those towns trying to combat this trend are basing their future survival on tourism, which itself is already being impacted by oil priced at the current $60-65 per barrel. For example, the local media has reported tourists as having deferred visits to the magnificent wildflower regions this spring. Rural towns such as Moora and Morowa rely on this annual event for valuable income.

Conclusion

The Australian way-of-life based on large populations living in low-density suburbs with a dependence on the car for transport will be shaken if world crude prices rise further to the level of US$190 per barrel predicted by Texan oil banker Matt Simmons.

But Australians living outside our major cities are hurting seriously now. In April 2004 the prime minister raised a copy of the STC’s Oil: Living with Less policy paper in Parliament and ridiculed it as an ALP plot to raise the price of petrol paid by Australian motorists. If he, and the other political leaders to whom we sent the policy, had actually listened to our sensible proposals (such as altering the FBT tax regime) at the time, Australians in both urban and regional areas would now be hurting far less and would be better prepared for even higher oil prices in the future.