Anthony McDonald

If you had told me this would happen this week, I would have said no way.

And it's not because it's infeasible.

You know, these refineries, they are old pieces of equipment, highly combustible liquid gases and all that sort of stuff through them.

So it's entirely possible.

But just the timing of it, as you said, like it couldn't have been much worse.

I mean, the one good thing about Australia is

fuel situation over the past six or seven weeks is that our refineries, the two that we do have and as small as they are, have been up and running at or close to capacity.

Together, they supply about 20% of our fuel needs, which is great.

However, like you said, that all changed on Wednesday night, didn't it?

And come Thursday morning, it was just the imagery of it, you know, and the timing of it was really something.

And obviously it's a good thing no one was hurt, but what's likely to hurt even more are our hip pockets.

I think James, like the prime minister says, don't worry about it.

Don't worry about the prices, but I am.

Australia's petrol and diesel markets, they're so finely balanced, you know, that when you take something like a few percent of supply out of the market, which is what they're talking about now.

It makes us rely even more on import markets, the volatile prices.

It's hard to see how this doesn't flow through to high prices at the Bowser, even if just for a little while.

I mean, obviously, it hurts Viva Energy, the company that owns the refinery.

It hurts their profits.

But I think, James, the person that really hurts the most is Anthony Albanese.

This is the last thing.