Interviewer (2:42)

enacting measures to try and Protect energy supplies.

Luke Vargas (2:46)

Romania, Japan and the Philippines have declared states of emergency. India, South Korea and Egypt have been rationing fuel. Others have paused fuel taxes, released millions

Interviewer (2:58)

of barrels of oil from their reserves

Luke Vargas (2:59)

or told their citizens to change their habits.

Interviewer (3:02)

Among them, Australia, where we're joined this morning by Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen. Minister, Australia has been very reliant on refined energy imports. Diesel, gasoline, jet fuel.

Luke Vargas (3:17)

Recap for us, what has been done

Interviewer (3:19)

since the Iran war began to prevent

Luke Vargas (3:21)

fuel shortages because for a little while

Interviewer (3:23)

there, things were looking a bit tenuous.

Chris Bowen (3:26)

Yeah, that's right, Luke, thanks for having me on. Well, yeah, we are at the end of a refined fuel supply chain here in Australia. We have two refineries. They're relatively small by international standards and we have some oil extraction, but it only provides a small amount of our oil. So we are at the end of a supply chain. And in this particular international crisis where the Straits of Hormuz have been the real flashpoint, we like the rest of the Asia Pacific region, you know, Foreign

Interviewer/Moderator (3:55)

Minister Balak Sheeran of Singapore has called

Chris Bowen (3:58)

this an Asian crisis.

Interviewer/Moderator (3:59)

And I think he's pretty right, have

Chris Bowen (4:00)

really been, you know, in the pointy end of the. Having said that, we've had no ships that we expected to arrive, failed to turn up. We have actually now more fuel in Australia at the today than on the

Interviewer/Moderator (4:14)

day that Iran was bombed.

Chris Bowen (4:16)

So we've taken a number of measures. Firstly, public communications to tell people, look, we're okay for the moment, but, you

Interviewer/Moderator (4:23)

know, let's all be sensible here. Let's all not use any fuel that we don't need.

Chris Bowen (4:28)

We did deal early on in the

Interviewer/Moderator (4:30)

international crisis with a big spike in domestic demand. No more fuel use, but a lot more fuel purchases. So that really put pressure on our domest supply chain and more laterally we've in, we've carried legislation through the parliament to give our Export finance Australia, our Trade Financing Organization, the ability to work with companies to get extra cargoes into Australia to provide a bit of extra buffer because this crisis is not being solved overnight. So as we speak, we've secured an extra 450 million litres of diesel and an extra 100 million litres of jet fuel that in and of itself won't, you know, be. But it is in addition to all the fuel that always would have arrived here anyway. And of course we're making these deals and announcements every few days. So it is building to be quite a substantive buffer.

Interviewer (5:21)

We do need to note that going

Luke Vargas (5:22)

back to the start of the year

Interviewer (5:23)

among members of the IEA, the agency said you had just 49 days worth of oil stocks in reserve, which was by far the lowest among IEA members. What's that number now in terms of

Luke Vargas (5:34)

days and just how was that allowed to happen?

Chris Bowen (5:37)

The IEA standard I'm happy to talk about and our own domestic standards a little bit, we measure them differently. So we, when I talk about fuel in Australia, I only talk about fuel in our economic zone. As you know, the IEA measure can be fuel held anywhere in the world that can be sold onto the international market. Whereas what I'm talking about is fuel that's in Australia. That's, I think, the more relevant test for us as we speak in terms of our own fuel security. So I put these figures out every Saturday. But the last figures I put out showed that we had 44 days worth of petrol and 30 days or so of diesel and jet fuel each, which is more than we had when the crisis began internationally.

Luke Vargas (6:16)

Got it.

Interviewer (6:16)

So for the background for our listeners, the IEA sort of recommends having 90 days worth of stocks. You say Australia now at 44, I mean, still quite low. Are you feeling comfortable? Are you trying to get that number up?

Chris Bowen (6:28)

Well, of course, always more is better and we are, you know, we're working on a whole range of things. But, you know, as I said at the moment, we've not had to ration fuel. I don't envisage having to ration fuel at any time in the immediate foreseeable future.

Interviewer/Moderator (6:42)

We're working hard to avoid that. And if we keep going where we have, we will avoid that.

Interviewer (6:47)

Just looking at supply side interventions here, I know Australia has made some deals in the last month to get energy supplies from several countries in the Asia Pacific. We've also heard from President Trump saying he wants countries that are dealing with fuel shocks to buy oil from the United States. A tempting proposition.

Chris Bowen (7:03)

Well, we have done that too. Not through our government purchases. They've been based on, you know, Singapore and South Korea and Malaysia and Brunei, our main fuel suppliers. But the private sector has been going out and getting fuel from a diverse range of sources that we normally don't get fuel from. For obvious reasons. That's a good thing. So the chief executive, BP in Australia, for example, told me when we went to see a ship that had just come in from the United States with fuel on it. That's the first time he'd ever seen a BP ship from the United States in Australia. But also Argentina is supplying us, Algeria has been supplying us. So we've been Diversifying our supply to countries that aren't so reliant on the Straits of Hormuz to really. That's one of the reasons why we've got through this situation pretty well so far.

Interviewer (7:52)

Assuming the Strait of Hormuz reopens at some point, with or without ships having to pay a toll to Iran to transit through, will Australia be relying on energy imports coming from there?

Chris Bowen (8:03)

Well, inevitably, it's going to continue to play a role when it, you know, eventually, hopefully reopens in supplying us. But I do think inevitably we and the private sector will also be looking at that diversity supply.

Interviewer/Moderator (8:15)

And of course, one of the other things we're doing is also continuing with our strong transition to renewables. Because solar energy has to travel 150 million km from the sun, it does not have to travel the 150km of the Straits of Hormuz. So if you're transitioning to more electric transport and relying on renewables, that's also good for energy sovereignty and reliability in the medium term. It's not the solution for the next few weeks. By and large, the number of EVs we have in our supply in Australia is relatively low. We've got good EV sales, but relatively low in the stock. But Even then, those EVs are avoiding 15 million litres of fuel a week, which is then available for those consumers who are reliant on petrol and diesel.

Interviewer (8:57)

Chris Bowen is the Minister for Climate Change and Energy of Australia. Minister, thank you so much for the time and for being with us on what's News.

Chris Bowen (9:04)

My great pleasure. Thanks to you and to all our listeners and viewers.

Luke Vargas (9:08)

Coming up, we've got the rest of the day's news, including fresh Republican efforts to redraw congressional maps ahead of the midterms and how King Charles secured a big win for the makers of Scotch whiskey. Those stories and more after the break.

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Luke Vargas (9:59)

Following a spate of anti Semitic attacks in recent weeks, the UK has raised its terror threat level, suggesting that an attack is highly likely in the next six months. UK authorities this morning charged a man with attempted murder for stabbing a pair of Jewish men in North London on Monday, an incident that police have formally declared an act of terrorism. As our UK Bureau chief David Luno reports, London's police commissioner says that successive British governments have failed to address a rising tide of anti Semitism that's now pushing some Jews to consider leaving the country.

David Luno (10:32)

Well, really in the last few years, like has been the case in the US and a lot of Europe and around the world, there's been a pretty alarming rise in anti Semitism. This has now turned quite violent. In the UK last October, during Yom Kippur, a 35 year old British citizen from Syria rammed his car into a synagogue in Manchester, an incident that killed two people in in recent weeks there's been a string of arson attacks, firebombing of Jewish ambulance service, attacks on synagogues, schools, charities and Jewish owned shops. There's an Iran linked group that has claimed responsibility for this and British police are investigating. The Jewish community is now terrified. I think it is safe to say it's gone beyond just being afraid to conversations that they never used to have. Is it safe to be a Jew in Britain? Will the government protect us? Should we move? Should we move to America? Should we move to Israel? Is there a safe place to move anymore if you're a Jew?

Luke Vargas (11:28)

The British government yesterday announced new funding for extra police patrols and security in Jewish communities. And as of this week, new measures enable police to prevent protests near places of worship as well as those that incite hatred or Division. Just 186 days out from the midterms, US congressional maps are poised for yet another shakeup following Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling to sharply restrict the use of race in creating electoral districts. Republican leaders are pushing Southern states to quickly redraw their maps to gain an edge in the fight for control of the House in November. Yesterday, Louisiana suspended congressional primaries scheduled for this month, with Republican Governor Jeff Landry urging state legislators to pass a new map and schedule elections using it in a move that could hand the GOP an extra House seat. And President Trump is hoping that Tennessee could be next, encouraging Republican Governor Bill Lee there to change maps in a way that could give the party another seat. A spokeswoman for Lee didn't respond to a request for comment. Democrats and their lawyers have signaled they'll fight any efforts to redraw maps in states where primaries have already taken place or are in progress. On Capitol Hill, it is technically deadline day for the Trump administration to get congressional approval for the Iran war, though top officials say that's not how they see it. Testifying yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued that a current ceasefire had stopped a 60 day countdown on the administration needing to receive a war authorization or else be forced to withdraw troops.

David Luno (13:00)

We have untied the hands of our war fighters, we fight to win and

Luke Vargas (13:05)

we follow the law. Some Senate Democrats and Republican Todd Young questioned Hegseth's interpretation of the War Powers act, wondering whether a ceasefire really did stop the clock if Iran didn't cease firing. Hegseth deferred to the White House about whether Trump intends to eventually seek congressional approval for the war. And finally, where in the world is the greatest single malt Scotch whiskey made in good news for Harrison Ford, apparently heard there in a glenmorangie ad. President Trump says he's giving the Scotch industry a break despite being a teetotaler himself. Trump posted on Truth Social that Britain's King Charles had persuaded him to remove tariffs on Whiskey from the UK, which stood at 10% and were slated to rise to 25% next month. Distillers and alcohol sellers on both sides of the pond cheered the announcement, which comes after a Scotch trade group reported a 15% drop in exports to the US after those second term tariffs came into effect. And that's it for what's news for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show and until then, Solan Java. And thanks for listening.

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