It seems EXTREMELY common sense to me that this should have already been implemented in AU, 100%.
Take the load off of our dwindling fuel reserves. I already see small fuel shops out of fuel!
Why has this not happened already???
Why Hasn't Work From Home Been Mandated during The Fuel Shortage?
Geekomatic on 06/04/2026 - 20:03
Last edited 06/04/2026 - 20:15 by 1 other user
Last edited 06/04/2026 - 20:15 by 1 other user
Comments
I reckon there is a slight chance OP is only referring to people who CAN work from home. It kind of goes without saying that tradies can't WFH.
It's those same tradies that need petrol/diesel more than us office workers so wouldn't they also encourage us to WFH when we can?
Tradies don't pay tax and gets all the money they can get their hands from your wallet, they should be thankful.
in 3rd world countries they would have been paid $1 an hour if they lucky.
I'm sure you've quit your job and become a tradie then?
Beyond ignorance, obnoxious. Second string of poison I've seen from you today. Are you all good?
smoothbrain comment /
smoothskin comment
found the office worker lol
Bahahaha. Totally agree mate. I work on and drive a school bus. I've tried to drive it from home but just can't reach the steering wheel properly. I've adjusted the seat and the steering wheel tilt but to no avail.
How are you intending to get children to school who currently rely on buses?
@Muppet Detector: You know how you can remote control vehicles? Turns out that the size of the vehicle is irrelevant to that principle. Remotely operated vehicles are old. We have had them at the bottom of the ocean, on other planets, and flying through the skies for decades.
Autonomous driving is effectively a solved problem. The machines already drive better than the majority of humans do. Resistance boils down to reluctance to hand trolly problems to machines we will never understand the thinking of, or having a legal framework that can deal with the logical consequences of machines that decide who lives and dies off the back of opaque and alien reasoning.
We have all the parts required here, we just lack the impetus.
@cfuse: How are you intending to get children to school who currently rely on buses.
Are these remote controlled substitutes ready to be rolled out now?
We are talking about ability for bus drivers to WFH now, right?
If we are talking fully autonomous, yes, that's ready to go right now.
You don't really think vendors that drop billions on R+D every year don't have retrofits for buses ready to go? Yes, they want to sell consumers an overpriced electric (profanity) car, but trucking and public transit aren't markets for Veblen goods.
If we are talking full or partial telepresence, that's a niche but solved problem too. There are no shortage of vehicle simulators, and literally the only difference between one of those and a telepresence rig is live data from the remote vehicle.
@Muppet Detector: More people suffer and die from burgers than do from MVAs, so that tells you how bad people are at accurately assessing consequence versus utility.
Why do we have bollards of peace everywhere now? The optimal solution and the socially accepted solution are frequently at odds.
As for self driving for buses, as a regular bus user I'd be fine with it. Telepresence is unnecessary, you'd have a stop button like you do on an escalator.
Well I know telepresence would be a terrible replacment for schools, so I guess we're relying on self-driving electric buses to get our kids to and from school. What's wrong with you squeamish parents blocking this rollout!!??
@SlickMick: When it's driving it's not parents, it's everyone.
If people have the choice between a 0.1% risk of being in an MVA with humans being in control and a 0.01% of that MVA with a single autonomous vehicle in play people will pick the higher risk.
People aren't logical actors. They don't make decisions based on objective statistics. This costs us dearly in some very predictable ways. Just human nature.
Kind of irrelevant and obvs the question is about jobs where WFH was proven to be effective during lockdowns.
I would have thought as a big, tough, true blue tradie you'd support measures that might reduce the risk of fuel shortages affecting big, tough, true blue utes and trucks?
"What do you think, Junior? You think these hands have been soaking in Ivory Liquid?"
Translation: "I imagine other people are really stupid and put stupid words in their mouth which they obviously didn't mean out of an apparent need to feel better about myself and a complete disinterest about living in reality."
If only there was some kind of transport that was available to the public that could be taken.
Besides, we aren't running out of fuel because there's a lack of fuel, much like we didn't run out of toilet paper because of any kind of lack of bog roll. It happened because people are morons. The people who "stocked up" would have done so whether they worked from home or not.
Unfortunately, public transport just doesn't work for many people and sick of reading people just say "just catch public transport"
For me it works, I can drive to the train station that is <10 mins away and catch a train that stops about 2 minutes from the office.
For my wife, 25-30 minute drive depending on traffic or a 10-15 minute walk to the closest bus stop then get on a bus and change 3 times to end up about 20 minute walk from her work for a grand total of ~2hrs and it's not like our house is somewhere remote or her work is somewhere remote, both in pretty normal areas, her work is surrounded by big businesses.
Im sure many many many people are in the same boat.
Yeah.
For me it’s ~12 minute drive to arrive at work at 06:00, or the earliest public transport is 1hr17mins to arrive 40 minutes late.And then there’s the issue of needing to take some specific tools to work occasionally. The public are cowards these days and would have panic attacks.
One of my daughters is a shift worker. I'd make her quit work and bludge off the dole before I'd let her catch public transport alone in the middle of the night.
I feel no shame in letting her continue to drive even though she could probably walk (20 odd minutes? to the PT) or have a sibling or parent drive her/accompany her).
I find it hard to believe your wife is catching 4 different buses to get to work whilst finishing her journey still 20 minutes away.
Good point, Australian public transport is abysmal compared to many countries and as a result we're very car reliant.
You're my new hero /s
Do you wear a cape when marching in that judgemental conga line going on inside your head?
How exactly are people "stocking up" on fuel? Filling up the boot after the tanks full?
Jerry cans, Loads of farmers are filling up their 44 galon drums or fuel storage tanks of fuel just in case (my brother included). His business depends on fuel supply for his tractors so even though the current shortage is purely demand based he played it safe. hence why you also see the problem worse in rural areas.
I've seen a few large building subbies stock their warehouses up with a shit tonne of diesel even at exorbitant cost.
Largely due to the risk of a fleet grounding costing them millions in liquidated damages (One was a scaffolder that contractually wears the cost of any project delays). As much as I detest hoarding, I can understand businesses doing this.
Ah yes, the panic inducing media, I'm sure to believe them. I have seen a grand total of zero people filling jerry cans at servos.
@brendanm: I've seen a grand total of zero petrol stations out of any kind of fuel nor any shortages.
There was a short run on petrol that caused issues (if you don't believe the stats showing that people were buying way over the average amount and have been for weeks, sure, live your life), but the idea there's such a significant shortage we need to all change our way of life is more panic induced than anything else. That's my whole point, the "shortages" themselves are manufactured.
@brendanm: I would say we learned a lot from COVID, and practically none of it was about the disease.
@brendanm: We have one (a Jerry can idk? 20litre? Looks about the size of a 20l oil drum) for each person in the household who relies on their car to get to work.
Another one incase we need it for things like generator or ride on mower etcOne lives within walking distance of work, so none for him and he does walk unless it rains or has a lot of stuff to carry
Another one can use public transport though train station is a fair way away, so still uses car a bit - so no extra fuel kept for him
One has EV, so he gets nuffin
3 employed by ADF, so they figure their own out, nothing to do with us.
But others, no WFH, not govt employees and require cars to get to work.
@brendanm: It did happen, during the first week people were photographed filling up IBCs (1000l fuel containers) on the back of trailers multiple times at my local servo.
Public transport? Well in my town are 3 buses a day to neighbouring town 15 minuts away if i used the first bus i would be 3 hours late for work, second about 6 hours late and third about a hour after i finished work.
I caught up with a friend recently who works in Melbourne the public transport it just doesnt work for him because public transport just dont go anywhere near where he works.
The train station is just a 10 minute walk from where he lives(Great) then after the train trip he has to wait 20 minutes for the bus(okay) once he get to his destination he has to walk 5 kilometres.Now when your doing a 10-12 hour shift and just want to get home to his young family his wife has to take that extra load on he just wants to get home to help her.
Most people stocking up were just filling up their cars earlier than usual instead of waiting till it was a low tank they were topping up.
The vast majority of people only have a 5 or 10 liter fuel can at home for their mowers etc.
The system just couldnt cope with that in reality small to each individual stock up.
99.99% of people dont have places to store extra fuel
Where I live, over the other side of the mountains, public transport just doesn't cut it here.
^This.
Australia hasn't missed a shipment of oil since all this began and our LNG leverage allows us to negotiate with our asian partners for continued supplied.
Petrol stations only keep 1-2 days of petrol as petrol spoils if stored for a long period.
Morons keep on panic buying, only take a slight increase in buyers to empty out a station, which is why you have stations with no fuel, and the ones that have no fuels are normally the smaller operators who aren't limiting idiots filling up a 400L tank as they are reaping the profits.
Australia hasn't missed a shipment of oil since all this began
BS
Port tanker counts are down https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/apr/08/petro…
Six ships and counting have been cancelled https://web.archive.org/web/20260321231509/https://www.abc.n…
How can you keep "panic buying" if you only have one or two 10 to 20L jerry cans at home and you've already panic filled your car earlier than normal? Even keeping your car topped up on an ongoing basis (filling up when it gets to 3/4 full instead of 1/2 full or 1/4 full) isn't going to have any impact on demand after that initial minor demand spike. Keeping your car topped up more frequently is just smoothing out your demand over time; you're not burning through the petrol any quicker.
Regional and rural customers have huge tanks of diesel on the back of their trays used on farmland, a landcruiser can take up to 270L with expansion tanks.
@CalmLemons: Ordinary Australians don't have a neverending supply of tanks and expansion tanks and jerry cans and empty coffee jars. Once they've filled them, they've filled them.
This isn't a shortage caused by ALP policy alone. Our fuel security has been reduced over the past few decades by both major parties.
Yes.
The thing is, there were a bunch of petrol stations that ran out fuel, or ran low on fuel, almost immediately.
There's no way those were impacted by fewer ships bringing fuel. That was from people panic buying.
Yes.
Anyone who "stocked up" up by filling their car to full or "hoarded" by filling a couple of jerry cans has already done that… a month ago.
Any ongoing shortages now are nothing to do with people "panic buying".
Anyone who "stocked up" up by filling their car to full or "hoarded" by filling a couple of jerry cans has already done that… a month ago.
Any ongoing shortages now are nothing to do with people "panic buying".That would explain why shortages are limited to rural areas, the number of stations lacking fuel is decreasing and generally our petrol supplies are fine. Although demand is still 30% over last year, despite that no one is "panic buying".
The fact is there are far fewer ships than normal docking in Australia and bringing fuel. https://nzoilwatch.com/au i.e. lack of supply is the issue.
I love a good vibe coded website. There's literally no fuel on it's way to Australia, are you prepared to stake your entire argument on that?
Diesel shortages are due to a combination of hoarding and reduced supplies reaching Australia. Several mining companies (maybe more) have been stocking up every last tank they can get their hands on. Logistics companies have been doing the same.
And if you click the above link, most of the fuel shortages are in diesel. But fair enough, it's not panic buying, it's just hoarding.
On March 13th we had 36 days of petrol reserves. Now we have 39 days. The real issue seems to be that there isn't any shortage in petrol.
Hoarding. Not by the general public. By big business. Presumably (hopefully) the military and emergency services are doing some hoarding too.
@tenpercent: I'd say the military probably doesn't need to since it would already have the backup supplies it needs in place - it would however likely be wanting to secure a maintained flow for replenishment of those reserves, and possibly expanding their capacities so that this supply disruption doesn't impact their true reserve.
Emergency services (outside of the SES) I doubt would have facilities to store much reserve fuel: there simply was never a need for those services to do so (although I can see the firies having some reserve fuel). SES however is a disaster recovery service, and thus would plan for situations where supply chains are disrupted (transport routes cut by flooding/fires/etc) and thus likely have facilities to store reserve supplies like fuel.
@tenpercent: So you're saying fuel pumps running out in regional areas for a short amount of time was by big business stocking up on petrol?
Diesel I agree on. But the early shortages were by morons that have been since sorted. And OPs post about how we should work from home due to shortages of petrol is just plain stupid because there's no petrol shortage to need to work around.
So you're saying fuel pumps running out in regional areas for a short amount of time was by big business stocking up on petrol?
Basically, yes.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/pm/fuel-suppliers-rat…
Nearly 1 months ago, One distributor, United Petroleum, is warning customers it will be restricting deliveries.
I'm sure I read a news articles weeks ago about one of the fuel distributors cutting supplies (reduced deliveries) to independent servos.
They did this when fuel was still arriving, so obviously they were hoarding, or selling to industry.
Shortages are not limited to rural areas. There's several servos in my capital city which have run out of one or more fuel types. Some have been out for more than a week straight.
@tenpercent: fuel station fuel ordering is done using the last 12 months of data, that's why you will see random metro locations out of fuel as the 12 months of data shows it "wouldn't" need a delivery yet.
They cant just ring up ampol to say we need fuel now.also in areas of abundant fuel stations they will always have fuel as they will all get reduced volumes (L) of delivery
while if theres lets say 1 or 2 stations they need to accept the largest amount to service their customers
Who was going to pay the extra $5 billion per year in fuel insurance?
Should have taken it from the NDIS.
The general Australian public and the Australian economy are backpaying it now.
By my estimates it has already cost Australia's economy at least $8 billion due to higher prices for petrol and diesel, and that's not even considering jet fuel. And we're only 38 days into it.due to higher prices for petrol and diesel,
Being charged astronomically high prices at the pump does not imply the Australian economy is suffering, fuel suppliers and Co. are making trillions profit. Remember that the $3.70 diesel at the pumps cost them $1.70(?? or less!!!!).
Wasn't the ALP that did that, it was the LNP when they were in power.
What we've recently seen is deliberate attempts by the LNP supporting media to create panic about fuel supply when its actually remained steady.
The LNP even had this deliberate tactic detailed in an internal leaked "talking points" document. So much for caring about Australians, everything is a political opportunity.
There's an argument from government, pushed by business lobbyists, that any WFH mandate is as goid as a lock down and will kill small businesses especially in CBDs.
Points they miss:
- people and businesses will employ WFH if possible anyway
- high costs and inflation will impact discretionary spending so aint nobody got money for your $8 skinny cap almond frou frou latte anyway
- people will move to public transport and foot traffic will change, businesses will be hit regardless
- people who WFH spend in local economies
Im not convinced a WFH mandate is necessary but certainly the governments could be directing executive to consider spending in their departments and that may mean encouraging WFH, for taxpayer benefits
It's always a BS argument about CBD economy. During lockdown, many people has extra money saved due to zero travel costs, which they ended up spending in cafes in their suburbs, boosting economy further than CBD. I can attest to that, as I was one of them, during COVID travel restrictions, I had almost every week coffee takeaways once or twice, occassional brunch there as well. Since return to office, I had zero coffee takeaways or brunches in cafes around my residence. I spend less for food as well, as travel costs have eroded my extra savings, which were going towards these takeaways in my suburb. So how is it fair that businesses in outer suburbs are being sacrificed for CBD businesses?!
I completely agree. Post covid, the local old high street/corner deli shops in my suburb rejuvenated and are packed 6 days a week. Constant stream from all walks but clear amounts of WFH/self employed types.
How is this bad?
Local employment, cheaper rent, builds community
The real reason is so property trusts owned by the big end of town continue to make money.
It isn't about collaboration, ideas, energy or any of that corporate BS.
Dollars, no more no less.
Pre-COVID local business and post-COVID local business is like night and day. One of the indisputable benefits to WFH I've personally seen is how local cafes are absolutely thriving now
small business hitlerites are the bane of our society.
If only we'd focused more on switching to renewables years ago we wouldn't be in this mess. Imagine how much worse it would be if there were no electric cars.
should've focused on self-sufficiency and not closing refineries
Bit more of both would have been even better
If the government had used taxpayer money to subsidize them for "just in case" for years or decades for this kind of moment, half of the same people would have been whining the entire time about wasteful government spending on non-viable businesses and to let the free market decide, saying it was "doomerism" to act like bad futures could happen and need to be prepared for.
I'm disappointed that EV owners aren't being publicly thanked for collectively removing over 400,000 fuel-using vehicles from the current fuel demand.
It's not a big effect yet, but it's a start to Australia's energy security.They didn't do it to benefit the Australian economy in anticipation of a globally impactful oil and fuel crisis.
They did it mostly to take advantage of tax benefits and lower operating expenses.Humans don't operate on a binary basis. Don't be sucked in by the modern press paradigm. Evs make good financial sense - but if that was the only reason almost no one would buy ICE.
Plenty of folk buy EVs without any lease or tax help too. The personal independence from fuel supplies is certainly in there.
Irrespective of the reasons, even with a late start we have over 400,000 EVs taking pressure off fuel supplies. At this rate in a few years it may be noticable - particularly once EVs rip into the last mile delivery market. And resilience to fuel disruption will definitely be a factor.
Thank you.
🙂
EVs are the way of the future but EV owners they didnt do it for a noble reason.
Most EV car owners dont comprehend what is happening in third world countries mass polution, child labour, deaths etc etc as a direct result in the chase for materials for the EV cars.
Personally i love the idea of owning a EV and charge at home ability.
I just dont know if i could sleep at night knowing whats happening in places like the Congo as a result.
My neighbour is from Uganda and he is in regular contact it shocks me some of the things happening to the kids there.
They are brilliant tech ev cars but with integrated batteries instead of removable batteries will make EV cars throw away and too expensive to repair again not good for the environment.
EVs are not a solution here.
Diesel and JetA are needed for all economic transport. We have had zero investment in Australia to move significantly to alternative fuel for trucks, trains or aviation.
Then there's the distribution issue.
Compounded by a lack of refineries, sovereign supply, being the literal last and tightarsed link in the supply chain.
You just cant make this 💩 up….
personal vehicles -> EVs
long distance trucks/trains -> fuellooks like a solution to me
Australia has more than enough LPG to fuel ourselves.
We probably have more than enough oil to fuel ourselves too if we wanted to pump and refine it.
We wouldn't even need renewables, just an investment in our own infrastructure…
literally makes no difference when we sell fuel directly to other countires that burn it and we pay out the ass for shit.
…we pay out the
assarse for shitFixed that for you.
Ever seen an EV tractor? Me either coz they'd last 5 minutes trying to pull what farmers have to drag behind them to make our food. We need diesel especially for the farmers NOW, so as they can at least get their crops in.
Ever consider how much diesel would be available if every Ranger, Prado and Hilux used for taking the kids to school was burning electrons instead?
have you?
Genuine question, I'd be interested to know.If you consider manufacturing and electricity production, apparently an EV will produce 60% of the CO2 that a petrol car and 75% of a diesel.
But maybe keeping the diesel for farmers would help the EV argument.
Even if we had made a hard decision to switch 30 years ago we would still be in this situation.
Definitely would not of been possible just on a technological basis.
You need to look a bit deeper and you would understand at the short fall ev has in industry etc at the moment.
How about the social implications to the low to middle income on the affordability they rely greatly on the secondhand car market(but stuff them) is basically how Ev pushers feel.
Ev cars are definitely the way of the future but as much as some people demand its just not tomorrow.
It has to evolve on its own not forced.
I just read that an EV powered from the grid currently produces 30 tonnes of CO2 over it's life, but this would reduce to 25 tonnes if we used 100% renewable energy.
That's significant, but does it justify the current level of investment??
The sun powers everything on Earth:
Plants turn sunlight into energy, animals eat plants, fossil fuels are ancient sunlight.
The sun is even responsible for wind energy (wind is created by uneven heating of air by the sun) and hydropower (from the sun-driven water cycle of evaporation and rainfall).
We have so far tapped about 0.01% of the solar energy available on the Earth.
Given this vast, effectively limitless energy source, we shouldn’t be facing fuel shortages or expensive electricity. We’ve simply built systems that create scarcity, and we could just as well build ones that avoid it.
Our societies and governments lack ambition and foresight.
We are so focused on things like property prices, personal wealth, and short-term political cycles.
We could have created the most amazing public transport systems by now, where getting to work or our favourite destinations is easy, quick, enjoyable, free, even spiritually uplifting.
But we prefer to sit for hours in heavy traffic breathing toxic air and risking our lives, while paying upwards of 20% of our income on vehicles and transport costs.
We could all have energy independence, but we prefer to stay locked to dated energy grids and ancient engine technology, and complain about fuel and electricity prices.
I 100% agree with you, I feel you’ve pulled this from my own mind.
Government is beholded to business council, and they own a lot of commercial property.
Vested interests want people to keep paying for cafes and they're scared commercial property prices and rent could drop
Some of us don’t have smooth hands thanks