Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable member interjects about what this has to do with the price of petrol in Australia. It is called the global oil price, and the global oil price directly affects the Australian oil price. I would suggest that they refer to their own statements on this matter over time. When you look at these challenges, on both the supply side and the demand side, it is important that we have an integrated response. On the supply side there are continued problems in Nigeria, and it is only recently that, after five years, supply from Iraq has begun to catch up with its pre-war levels of oil production. On the question of a proper response to this, it must be one which deals with long-term global factors and immediate national and short-term cost pressures for families as well. We need to look carefully at what is happening with overall global supply and maximise our leverage on organisations such as OPEC, as the President of the United States is seeking to do at present, backed by other heads of government as well, including this government. We must look also at the overall pattern of global demand. If we continue to have a lack of efficiency in global oil consumption, that will also have a cumulative impact on pushing the oil price up. In Australia we must also deal with practical challenges. The number of Australians who are currently sitting in queues in traffic around the country because of urban congestion—

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