Steve Price:
Joining me now is the Institute of Public Affairs Chief Economist, Adam Creighton and Sky News host Caleb Bond. Caleb, you are a student of good speeches. Rate the three minutes of the Prime Minister last night for me out of 10.
Caleb Bond:
Zero, which is about as much as we learned from it as well. I mean, seriously, I think it was probably put correctly by Andrew Bolt last night, our colleague, when he said it was the Prime Minister getting himself three minutes of free advertising on every radio station and television station in the country. It was nothing more than that. There was nothing in it that you learned. And to be perfectly frank, there was nothing that really you learned from Angus Taylor’s address this evening, nor was there anything that we really learned from Donald Trump’s address today either.
It’s seemingly leaders or want to be leaders in some cases trying to reassure people. But we don’t need reassurance at this time. We need answers. We need solutions. We need to be told that there is a plan, that we’re going to have fuel security, that we’re going to take some responsibility and do something to secure our fuel supplies in this country. And instead we’re told, “Yeah, look, nothing to worry about folks. Maybe take the bus sometime if you feel you could do it. Have a nice Easter and I’ll talk to you next week.” Well, when he talks to us next week, I suspect it won’t be so rosy as it was last night, but it was pointless, absolutely pointless.
Steve Price:
Adam, I mean, it seemed to me to be poll-driven political posturing, really, a speech that he can refer to when he goes back to it and saying, “Look, I was a steady hand before Easter and I told people not to panic and we weren’t in a position where we had to have petrol rationing. But when it ultimately happens, he can say, “Well, I didn’t want to panic people at the time.”
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, certainly, Steve. Look, I think all the criticism is very warranted and I think it’s all been said. So just to focus on the economics aspect, I mean, I can’t help but say just how extraordinary the lack of understanding is. On the one hand, you’ve got the Prime Minister saying to use fuel sparingly, use public transport, et cetera. And then on the other hand, of course, he’s cut the price of fuel quite significantly. So of course people will buy more. I mean, there aren’t too many iron laws of economics, but that is certainly one of them.
So it seems very muddle headed to me. And just as Caleb was saying, I think we’re going to have fuel rationing next week. And so is there going to be another announcement to the nation, another 7:00 PM broadcast? Surely there probably will if there is rationing. And so I just think the whole enterprise is actually not even going to work politically for the Prime Minister and the Labour Party. I think they look rather silly. If you talk to ordinary people, I think they wonder what all that was about.
Steve Price:
Caleb, the excise kicked in and the petrol price, the retail price, at least of diesel and unleaded petrol has gone down. I suspect that the government’s probably lent fairly heavily on … I bought at Shell today, but I looked at BP signs and I looked at Ampol signs, I think they’ve been lent on fairly heavily because those digital boards out the front of all of Australia’s petrol stations had something become screens of horror for many people as they drove past going, “$3.50 for Diesel.”
Caleb Bond:
Well, I did make the joke last night that perhaps when the prime minister spoke, it was because it was April Fuels Day. And to be fair, the actual decrease in the petrol price, thanks to a decrease in the excise shouldn’t come in for a couple of weeks because we’re dealing with fuel that’s already in the system, but it would seem that there has already been a small decrease, which I’m sure is welcome to a lot of people, but it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem. Sure, it makes it slightly more affordable. But the biggest problem we have is one of supply. That is why the price is currently so high because we are reliant on the whims of the market overseas.
And we’ve had this outside of times of crisis like this. It was about three years ago, I think, and it’s not the first time they’ve done it, and it’s not the last time they’ve done it, but OPEC, which is the oil producing countries in the Middle East, which has a stranglehold on a lot of the market, turned around and said, “Well, we are going to artificially decrease the barrels of oil that we’re sending out,” which then increases the price of oil and so goes up the price of petrol. They can manipulate the market anytime.
The reason petrol is so expensive in Australia is because we don’t have enough supply. And I don’t know whether you heard James Ashby talking to Peta Credlin earlier tonight, but he’s been over in the US and they’ve had very little change in their petrol prices over there. So it’s not about excise really. It’s not about tax. It’s about supply and that’s the problem we’re not fixing.
Steve Price:
Adam, you’re the economist. What’s the excise cut going to do to inflation?
Adam Creighton:
Well, look, of course it’s going to increase the federal budget deficit, which we all know puts pressure on inflation. I note there hasn’t been any announcement to cut spending anywhere else in the federal government. I think it’s something like two and a half billion, the cost to tax revenue for three months. It’s all about politics really, just like the billion dollar loans that the government’s giving out, the cheap loans. I mean, it’s not really going to change anything too much. Of course, it’s popular, but it’s just a reminder to me that the forthcoming budget in May is not going to be the one that Anthony Albanese talks about, the reforming budget, the productivity budget. It’s just going to be increased spending and increased inflation.
Steve Price:
Yeah, the Nine Papers are again reporting tonight that there will be capital gains tax changes, and I suspect we know that’s probably going to be the case. Now, Caleb, I’m not a gambler, but we all know that you are a punter. You love the punt.
Caleb Bond:
I do indeed.
Steve Price:
The prime minister today, in the middle of this speech where we were talking about war and petrol, suddenly dropped these changes at his speech today in regard to gambling ads. So TV ads, three TV ads an hour maximum, no radio gambling ads at school times, no celebrity, this is the one that gets me, no celebrities or athletes are allowed to appear in gambling ads, no gambling ads on social ads limited only to adults. And you can’t even have a gambling company name on your jersey if you’re playing rugby league or AFL. Caleb, that’s going to send a whole bunch of clubs broke.
Caleb Bond:
Indeed.
Steve Price:
The only money they have for marketing is gambling ads.
Caleb Bond:
Indeed. And that may be a structural issue that sporting clubs have to deal with as well. You shouldn’t be too reliant on any one source of revenue, I suppose, but I think this is a load of cods wallop. The celebrity stuff, how do you define what a celebrity actually is? I mean, do we have to do some sort of survey to work out at which point someone is recognisable enough that they’re no longer allowed to appear in an advertisement for a gambling company? I don’t know. It is populist, and I’m sure it will be popular with quite a number of people, but that’s the reason that the government talks about sports betting, because sports betting is not as evil as the government and many other people would like us to think it is. You’ve only got to go and look at the numbers and I’ll go through some of this tonight on the late debate and I’ll go through it tomorrow evening on the Bond Report, which is followed by a good programme hosted by Steve Price. So I hope you’ll all be there for that tomorrow evening.
But if you look at the amount of money that is gambled in this country, ’23, ’24, it was about $32 billion. You look at the things people gamble on, the most popular form of gambling is lotteries, followed by scratches, followed by pokies, followed by racing, followed by sports betting in fifth, and then in comes keynote.
Now, pokies, which is third on that list, higher, more popular than racing and sports betting. But it’s third, it contributes more than half of the entire money that is gambled in this country and about double what is gambled on sports and racing combined. So if you want to talk about the social evils of gambling, pokies far and away are the problem, but we’re talking about sports betting because it’s visible and that’s what they think they can get votes out of. It’s not actually about fixing the losses that people incur and the damage that is caused by gambling, otherwise they’d be talking about pokies instead.
Steve Price:
Adam, I mean, this got me thinking today that this has got a bit of the tobacco excise written all over it. I mean, smoking cigarettes, Caleb, is a legal product. You’re allowed to smoke and a grown adult, if they want to blow up their way, you should be able to gamble. So they’re going to bring in these changes, and I don’t think they’ve really thought through what the impact on the social fabric of Australia is actually going to be. We’re a free country. If you want to go down to the pub and have a sports bet on who’s going to kick the first goal or has the first try in a rugby league game, why shouldn’t you be able to do that?
Adam Creighton:
That’s certainly true. Look, I think rates of gambling don’t vary that greatly across Western countries, especially on sport and there are various rules on advertising. So I just don’t think it makes a huge difference. What it does of course hurt is the broadcasters and the TV network. So of course there’s a downstream effect. If you cut that big source of revenue, you’re going to have worse quality programming, which is not great. So look, I think it is politics just like Caleb said. And also, as he said, he made a very good point on pokies. Where’s the focus on pokies? I think this is just an attack on sports, gambling, sports betting. It’s certainly not something I do. I don’t know much about it, but as you say, it’s part of Australian culture. Indeed, it’s a part of Western culture. And I don’t think you’re going to change that by these harmful tweaks to advertising.
Steve Price:
Caleb, Adam, great to have you with us. Thanks very much.
This transcript with Adam Creighton on Sharri Sky News Australia from 2 April 2026 has been edited for clarity.
