Carrington Clarke

And the truth of the matter is, at this point, Iran does have the power to keep the strait closed.

And America was unable to force it open during the periods where there were live fire.

And there seems to be less appetite politically in America to continue a war to try to reopen it.

Alan, let's talk about Australian politics because the government has made a decision when it comes to the fuel excise cut.

So this was relatively early on in the conflict.

They determined to cut the fuel excise cut.

which meant a 32 cent per litre cut to the price people were paying for petrol.

It was due to expire at the end of this month.

And the government has kind of decided to do almost a literal halfway measure, haven't they?

They've decided that there will still be a cut to the usual excise, but it won't be as big as it has been recently.

And it will now be 16 cents per litre.

What do you make of that decision?

Is it the right one?

And what impact do you think it will have for the Australian economy?

Well, I think it seemed One Nation was putting a bit of pressure on this issue, kind of the de facto opposition at this point, where they were suggesting we needed to have an excise cut for a much longer period.

So I think the government didn't probably want scenes of people desperately trying to fill up their tanks next week ahead of the –

price increase.

Maybe you'll get a bit of that, but maybe half as much as you would otherwise get.

It does, I think, make it slightly messier for the Reserve Bank trying to assess inflationary pressures.

But maybe it does blunt some of the second wave impacts, at least for now.