How Australia’s Government Backed an Illegal War and Left Australians to Foot the Bill
The Speed of Capitulation
When American and Israeli missiles began striking Iranian cities in the final days of February 2026, the Australian government did not wait for the UN Security Council to meet. It did not wait for legal opinion. It did not wait for evidence.
Within hours, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared that “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security.” Foreign Minister Penny Wong added that she would “leave it for the US and Israel to speak of the basis, the legal basis for the attacks.”
Not since the invasion of Iraq has an Australian government been so swift to endorse military action without international legal sanction. And not since Iraq has an Australian government been so unprepared for the consequences.
The Miscalculation
The operation was billed as a surgical strike. The theory – as arrogant as it was flawed – held that the removal of Iran’s leadership would trigger a swift regime collapse, that the Iranian people would rise up at America’s invitation, that the war would be over before it began.
What happened instead defies every neocon fantasy.
The Islamic Republic did not fracture; it consolidated. A new spiritual leader emerged. Iranian society rallied behind the flag. And Tehran demonstrated what analysts had long warned: that it possesses both the capability and the will to strike back effectively.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, is now effectively blockaded. Iran has asserted control, allowing only Chinese oil tankers through under negotiated exemptions. Western and allied shipping has effectively stopped.
The war we were told would be quick and decisive is now entering its second month, with no end in sight.
The Economic Wreckage: Fuel
Australia is an island nation. It imports approximately 90 per cent of its liquid fuel. We have two remaining refineries, producing less than a quarter of domestic demand. The rest comes through the Strait of Hormuz.
That supply line is now severed.
The price of Brent crude has surged from $72 per barrel in January to over $110, and in some trading sessions, beyond $180.
The impact on Australian motorists has been immediate and brutal. Petrol prices have risen by more than 30 per cent in a month. Some rural service stations have run out of fuel entirely. Hundreds of outlets have imposed purchase limits of 50 litres per customer. Social media is flooded with images of panic buying – jerry cans stacked in driveways, queues stretching down highways.
Australia’s fuel reserves are dangerously low. According to Energy Minister Chris Bowen, we have 39 days of petrol, 30 days of diesel, and 30 days of jet fuel. This is far below the 90-day reserve recommended by the International Energy Agency. The government has already reduced reserve requirements for importers by approximately 20 per cent – equivalent to six days of national supply.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers now calls this conflict “the defining influence” on the May budget. He warns that Treasury has modelled two scenarios – one with oil at $100 per barrel, one with oil at $120 – and admits that “both scenarios could underestimate the cost.”
Even under conservative assumptions, the war could cut GDP growth by up to 0.2 percentage points across major trading partners, add up to 1.25 percentage points to inflation, and leave GDP 0.6 per cent lower in 2027.
The Treasurer’s own words should chill every Australian: “We’ve already seen four major shocks – the GFC, a major pandemic, a global inflation shock, escalating trade tensions – and this oil shock could become the fifth.”
The Food Chain: Fertiliser and Farming
The war is not just hitting the bowser. It is hitting the dinner table.
Australia’s farmers are now facing a crisis of their own. The Strait of Hormuz disruption has cut off supply of urea fertiliser, upon which Australian agriculture is heavily dependent. Prices have soared. Supply has tightened. And the winter planting season is about to begin.
Queensland farmer Arthur Gillen normally splits his winter crop between wheat and chickpeas. This year, with fertiliser costs prohibitive, he is reducing wheat to 20 per cent of his planting area and abandoning urea use entirely.
He is not alone. Farmers across the country are pivoting to low-fertiliser crops – lentils, chickpeas, canola – and reducing wheat acreage. This shift, driven by war, will reshape Australian agriculture for years to come.
The timing could not be worse. Rabobank warns that the Strait of Hormuz must be open by the end of April to get fertiliser to farmers in time for winter planting. If it is not, the impact on Australian food production will be severe and sustained.
Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins has announced a national food security review. Farmers are telling the ABC they fear fuel shortages will impact the winter harvest. The government is scrambling, but the damage is already being done.
The Medicines Pipeline
In March 2026, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) issued an unusual public statement: they urged Australians not to panic buy medication.
The reason is the Strait of Hormuz. Pharmaceutical companies have been forced to reroute critical medicines away from the Persian Gulf, switching from sea freight to air freight at enormous cost.
Medicines Australia CEO Liz de Somer confirmed that “some companies were redirecting critical medicines from sea to air freight, while using alternative routes that avoided Middle Eastern airspace.” She acknowledged that “this has an enormous impact on the cost to the industry, for the logistics.”
The war has exposed a vulnerability that health experts have warned about for decades: Australia’s near-total dependence on imported pharmaceuticals. With almost 400 medications already listed in shortage by the TGA, any further disruption could be catastrophic.
Professor Mark Morgan of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners warned:
“There are few things more important to a person than maintaining their health and there are few things more concerning than potentially losing access to a medicine you have been advised to take for your health.”
The government assures us it is monitoring the situation. But monitoring does not secure supply chains. Monitoring does not manufacture insulin in Melbourne. Monitoring does not build the pharmaceutical independence Australia has neglected for decades.
The AUKUS Mirage
Perhaps the most profound strategic consequence of this war is the damage it has done to Australia’s faith in its alliance with the United States.
The US military resources that were meant to underpin the AUKUS nuclear submarine program are now stretched to breaking point in the Persian Gulf.
If Washington cannot keep its promises to South Korea or Japan, one Queensland University of Technology professor asked, what confidence can Australia retain in the submarine deal?
Public opinion is already shifting. Polls show more Australians oppose the war than support it. The government’s swift endorsement of an illegal conflict has left it morally stripped naked and strategically embarrassed.
The Government’s Response: Too Little, Too Late
To its credit, the government has belatedly recognised the scale of the crisis.
On March 27, Prime Minister Albanese announced new fuel security powers, including the use of Export Finance Australia to underwrite private sector fuel purchases. He called out panic buyers, declaring that filling jerry cans was “not the Australian way.”
Energy Minister Bowen has appointed a former energy regulator to lead a national fuel supply taskforce. The government is considering support for the nation’s two remaining refineries.
But these measures are reactive. They address the symptoms, not the cause.
The cause is a war the government supported without reservation, without requiring legal justification, without apparently considering the consequences for the Australian people.
The government’s own Treasury modelling shows the war will cost Australians in higher prices, lower growth, and reduced food production for years to come. And yet, when asked about the legal basis for the attacks, Foreign Minister Wong said she would leave it for the United States and Israel to explain.
This is not leadership. This is abdication.
The Path Forward
The war is not ending soon. Iran’s leadership has consolidated. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed to Western shipping. Global energy markets are in turmoil.
What Australia needs is not more loyalty to a declining hegemon. What Australia needs is a government willing to act in the national interest – not just in the interests of alliance management.
We need fuel security. That means supporting domestic refining capacity, not allowing our last two refineries to close. It means strategic reserves that meet international standards, not reserves that fall 60 days short.
We need food security. That means diversifying fertiliser sources, supporting farmers through the transition, and ensuring that Australian agriculture can withstand global shocks.
We need pharmaceutical independence. That means onshore manufacturing of essential medicines, so Australians are not dependent on supply chains that can be severed by war.
And we need a foreign policy that puts Australians first. Not one that rushes to support illegal wars without asking what it will cost the people it is supposed to serve.
A Question for the Government
Prime Minister, you said you support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But at what cost?
You approved this war without a vote in parliament. Without a legal opinion. Without any apparent consideration of what it would mean for Australians filling their cars, for farmers planting their crops, for patients needing their medicines.
The war you supported is now costing Australians at the bowser, at the grocery store, at the pharmacy. It is threatening the viability of Australian agriculture. It is undermining the very alliance you claimed to be protecting.
Was it worth it?
And more importantly – what will you do now to protect Australians from the consequences of a war you endorsed?
The article is dedicated to my wife, who makes me smile even when the world is on fire.
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International atomic energy agents, other bodies, even savvy connected media people have been observing all this, literally daily if possible, for years, and we have been told, often not reported (deliberately??) that there are no weapons grade stores of material in Iran at all. Yet ruthless murdering swine in Israel and the USA have great stocks, delivery systems, navigation, the lot, for eternal widespread agony. So, duck and cover. Vlad P. has huge stocks, so he “doesn’t exist.” Evil…ugly bullies at their dickmeasuring.
I don’t think the government supported the war. Trump gave no others any choice. He just went and did it without consulting even his own congress.
Had a vote been taken on support in parliament we could be fairly certain the opposition would have given unwavering support, so there would be no point.
As far as AUKUS, hopefully this is a way to stop that lunacy.
The TACO Trumpery war against Iran and the consequent restriction of sea traffic through the Straits of Hormuz has brilliantly exposed the weakness of the ”One World Economic Model” currently squeezing Australian voters.
1) Post WWII Australia sought to become independent of dependence upon foreign raw materials, especially fossil fuels and other essential commodities; successive generations of politicians have been encouraged to rely upon foreign imports of nearly everything, blaming union activities protecting the Australian workers rights as the underlying need for this development.
Really it was simply foreign owned multinational corporations & national manufacturers wanting to increase profit margins using the poorer working conditions in air conditioned SE Asian sweat shops. Too bad about the reduction in Australian general business turnover that drives Australian small businesses.
2) The current position clearly demonstrates that successive governments, especially COALition misgovernments, have failed to maintain the necessary ninety (90) day of fossil fuel reserves required, even being conned to store fossil fuels in America ….. a long way from the western NSW farmers requiring fuel for sowing food crops.
3) The loss of pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity in Australia is a major concern given the ageing Baby Boomers and their late life medical needs.
But it clearly demonstrates what farmers have known for decades; owning your own machinery means you can work regardless of almost everything, especially the requirements of neighbours wanting to use their machinery when you need it.
3) The Scummo USUKA sub debacle cannot be justified by this emergency; six (6?) boats susceptible to drone attacks perhaps available about 2050 means that farmers will be returning to heavy horses to prepare ground for food production ….. except there is at least a two (2) year delay before the diminished number of mares will birth the proposed equine workforce ….. about a further 24 year wait …..
4) The preference for the NO-GO-ALBO LABOR government to bend over every time the professional whingers among the ZIONAZI minority faction of Judaism followers squark their disapproval of any policy that they perceive disadvantages their ”self-entitled” position in world history (since they were dragged in chains from Jerusalem to Babylon as conquered slaves for the Persian victors).
As Keating noted, Australia is part of Asia and should act accordingly; staying out of any imperialistic ”adventures” by the USA (Undemocratic Sewer of Apartheid) by becoming an non-aligned nation that has relinquished 19th century imperialism to work of local Aboriginal reconciliation and directing Australian wealth to making the country better for ALL Australian voters.
Labor retrospectively applied 2018 legislation back to a time when Australia was on such good terms with China that we conducted joint military exercises together, so that it could extradite an Australian citizen to the madhouse that is the USA. Tom Duggan gave flying lessons to a group that included some Chinese, again, at a time well before it suited the USA to go all ‘attack China, they’re an existential threat to democracy’. It was not illegal and China was not being demonized as a threat at that time.
But, it’s not just Tom Duggan that Labor has betrayed to win favour with the USA. It’s not just his family of 6, all Australian citizens and all his Australian citizen friends that Labor has betrayed.
Labor has betrayed all Australian citizens. Who amongst us would Labor not extradite if the USA told them too? Labor has thrown all of us under the ‘you come under US jurisdiction whether you’re an Australian citizen or not’ bus. If some US fascist government comes after you, Labor is going to hand you over and go all Chester – ‘yeah, yeah, then how about we go chase some cats’. (I’ve forgotten, which AIMN commentator brilliantly spotted the Spike and Chester analogy, but thanks.)
Labor is trying to give ASIO powers to ‘disappear’ people indefinitely. What’s the chance that if Mossad pointed the finger at someone they wouldn’t be ‘disappeared’ by ASIO?
Labor is taking your grandchildren to a very dark place.
Iran has retaliated against the US companies in the Middle East that are a part of the Israel-US kiddy-killing machinery – it attacked an Amazon AI facility.
When Labor, not just supported this illegal war, but joined in actively participating in this US-Israel kiddy-killing spree, it wasn’t just the 187 soldiers and Wedgetail aircraft that they put at risk, it was every Australian company that participates in any way in attacking Iran, at risk.
The bespectacled squinting imitation of King Julien wasn’t to know that Iran would tell the world what targets it would attack beforehand, giving the workers there a chance to get out, when he went all ‘l like to bomb, bomb it; I like to bomb, bomb it’. For all Albanese and his cabinet of US butt plugs knew when they decided to support this unprovoked attack on Iran they were putting the lives of all the Australian expats in the region at risk. Scumbags the lot of them.
So, why isn’t Albanese and his band of warmongers making serious representations with the Iranian ambassador to Australia to sort this out, at least in regard to Australia? Labor can’t, they threw the Iranian diplomats out of Australia, for all we know, on the basis of Mossad’s word for it that Iran was behind arson attacks in Australia. Why haven’t Albanese and Burgess shown us the evidence they claim to have?
When will Anthony Albanese, Wong, Dreyfus and Marles be referred to the ICC for complicity in genocide and now war crimes against humanity?
At a time of crisis, caused by a pair of genocidal rogue nations attacking other nations willy nilly, we have possibly the most incompetent bunch of self-serving suckholes Australia has ever seen in charge; what could possibly go wrong?
Given the vast amounts of LPG and natural gas in Australia, any deal with minining companies to export our natural wealth should always have included a domestic supply clause that a domestic supply at just above production/distribution cost, always be available regardless of any overseas trading deal/s. This would in part help Australia maintain unlimited gas supplies for home use, successive governments have given this independence away as well as most local manufacturing. Australia, once called the ‘lucky country’ we are just another big island with double the population we had fifty years ago, doing the impossible with nothing. The US has become a liability to Australia with their inmates running the asylum, with assistance from within. Sadly, the best years are well and truly behind us.
Donald Trump and Israel have been flat out like lizards drinking trying to drag ‘Western’ nations into this illegal war that the US and Israel began. Who would be so craven, so indifferent to the interests of the people of the world as to join in this immoral, moronic attack on Iran? Who would jump up and down saying ‘me, me, me, pick me’ first to jump in with support.
The Labor Pro-War Party, that’s who.
Now, that it’s turning into the catastrophe that many predicted it would, that has kept other warmongering US presidents from doing, the Labor Pro-genocide Party are trying to crabwalk away from having supported it.
What our country needed was a government that called out the Trump administration’s behaviour from the beginning. Happy Liberation day, by the way. And sought out other countries to bring whatever pressure possible to reign in Trump’s behaviour. What we got was behaviour reinforcing support.
We got from this incompetent, immoral deceitful Labor government pandering to Trump and giving tacit support, or even outright support to extorting small nations, piracy on the high seas, assassinations, illegal attacks on sovereign nations, kidnapping and assassinating sovereign leaders. We needed a government that stood up for International law and decency, instead Albanese and his band of grifters have consistently undermined International law, whilst pissing down our backs and telling us it’s raining with ‘we support International law’.
Instead, we’ve got a government that organizes violent attacks on peaceful protesters, secretly develops an anti-protest unit, suppresses criticisms of its favourite genocide-committing nation, tries to hide everything it does from the public, provides material support and political cover to genocidal nations, is in the process of giving ASIO the power to disappear Australians, and now breaks the law by not providing through parliament the reasons for taking Australia to war.
Thommo,
You have nailed it in one.
This incompetent and utterly useless government is far worse than the LNP corporation loving party because they blindsided all of us with the deceit and lies about what they were going to do when in government. I can just see Albo and his mate Morrison laughing their heads off at how f&*(^%ed up and gullible the Australian population is.
You are totally right that Marles, Wong and Albanese should be indicted for war crimes. Also add the Israel Zionist toadies to the list.
Australia …………. lucky country, greatest multicultural nation on earth, freedom of speech, gambling reform pioneer, whistle blower protector, +++++++ …………. bull^&%$.
Simba,
“Albo and his mate Morrison laughing their heads off” is absolutely right. Normally, this wouldn’t matter; Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser became good friends after they left politics. Albanese the Tory fighter behaves as a Tory. He fights the biggest alternative to corporatocracy – the Greens. He behaves as if he’s modelled himself on Howard and Morrison.
Labor campaigned on we’re not the Morrison government, or if you don’t vote Labor you’ll get Morrison again, then it campaigned with if you don’t vote Labor you’ll get Dutton, and the next is looking like if you don’t vote for Labor you’ll get Hanson.
The danger is that Labor is framing itself as the alternative to a cabal of Liberal, Nationals and One Nation parties. In reality Labor does not provide a true alternative to them; on far too many issues it behaves just like them.
Pro-Israel activists have conducted an erasure of Palestinian identity and culture in Australia, and if Australians ever manage to extricate themselves from the clutches of the duopoly and the Zionists there needs to be an accounting for this suppression of Australians. If we keep allowing the powerful to run roughshod over Australians, we will leave our children and grandchildren at the mercy of tyrants.
I agree totally that some of the Genocide-supporters in Australia should be referred to the ICC. Someone petitioned Dreyfus to do just that for one of the prominent Australian Zionists, Dreyfus refused. This person was going to refer the Zionist to the ICC. In looking for a link to this the first thing that came up was:
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/genocide-complicity-claim-against-australian-pm-added-to-the-iccs-palestine-investigation/
There is hope for justice yet, I’ll have to change my postings from ‘when will’ to ‘if we get lucky we’ll get to hand him over to the ICC’.
We should be adding John Howard, Tony Blair and George W Bush for war crimes as well.
Mr Shevill Mathers: It was Howard who gifted extracted Australian CSG to the foreign owned multinational CSG corporations which in turn made multiple BILIONS profits without paying a fair price?? Did Little Johnnie get a quiet brown paper Bag??
The current determined push to IMPOSE A PERMANENT 25% TAX ON EXPORTED CSG is merely correcting the present financial disadvantage of COALition policy. Never let it be said that COALition policies are constructed to benefit the Australian voters.
Albasleasy told a bold faced lie about the Iran nuclear threat as exposed by David Shoebridge. The damage now being done to Australia comes down to one simple fact. Australia’s association with the toxic and destructive USA and Israevil, the worlds two worst terrorists. Its also blatant hypocrisy. The USA and Israevil (illegally) can have nukes but Iran can’t. And lets not forget Israevils Samson Option to blow up the whole world…
For the true situation with fuel availability, have a look at the NSW government’s fuel check site: https://www.fuelcheck.nsw.gov.au/app/FuelPrice/ByLocation?latitude=-33.8693325&longitude=151.2094033&nearbyme=true&radius=3
Many fuel stations are temporally out of fuel until the tanker turns up. Many fuel stations may be out of one type of fuel. To blithely say, as many Liberal etc politicians are saying that numbers in the hundreds of fuel stations are out of fuel, is just another lie
I think that we have heard this record before….
George W. Bush anybody….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbP8HGxrgo8 so how anybody can swallow this lock, stock and smoking barrel is beyond comprehension.