"The National Cabinet has today laid out a staged, agile and responsive plan to the Middle East crisis to deliver fuel and supply resilience to our country's economy, industry and consumers," said Innes Willox, Chief Executive of the national employer association, Australian Industry Group.
"We welcome today's four-stage National Fuel Security Plan to manage contingencies in our fuels and energy supplies, with four staged responses scaling to emerging developments. The outcome mirrors our request on behalf of industry for a national, staged and fit for purpose response.
"National Cabinet's job today was not to solve all the problems, but it has agreed to put in place a framework to assess if higher levels of action are needed in coming months.
"The fact this plan has buy-in and clearly defined roles for the federal and state governments is critical, particularly on their plan to build fuel and energy resilience to shield the community from geopolitical shocks in the future.
"This shows a key lesson of Covid has been learnt: that we do best when we work together as a coordinated nation. We now trust that all levels and forms of government will stick to the plan.
"The initial impact of the crisis has fallen on fuel prices, and it is therefore appropriate that some responsible price relief is now being offered. Halving the fuel excise and suspending the heavy vehicle road user charge for three months will help dent the inflationary impacts across all parts of the economy.
"Supply chains for many products – fuels, fertilisers, plastics, industrial commodities and more – will be affected in the weeks ahead. Industry already reports shortages beyond fuel are coming just over the horizon which will clearly impact both supplies and prices.
"Most importantly, this plan gives us a framework to step out further responses if and when these disruptions emerge. Defined options to take targeted action and secure critical services will give industry and households confidence that systems will stay resilient through stress," Mr Willox said.
