Topics: U.S.-Iran war, Fuel inflation, Iranian soccer players

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PETE STEFANOVIC: Joining us live this morning is the Liberal senator, Dave Sharma. Good to see you this mornings, Dave. So, what's your thoughts on this? I mean, it can't be any fault of the government on this one. they did their best. But why do you think there has been this change of heart from the players?

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I find it quite, mysterious and not a little troubling, Peter, to be honest. I mean, I think the obvious conclusion here is that the players were subjected to pressures, or their, or their families back home in Iran were subjected to pressure after they made their decision, which caused them to rethink, which just confirms firstly that the decision to offer them asylum was right, because they do have a well-founded fear of persecution, and the regime's, tentacles of intimidation are very long, and they reach into Australia.

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PETE STEFANOVIC: Do you think that there... and I put this to Matt Thistlethwaite a little earlier. It, there's a few different reports this morning that there is a technical team member who has the ear of the IRGC. She stayed behind and might well be playing a role, and also potentially the safe house has been compromised. So I mean you've got two, two pretty big potential factors there.

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I mean obviously I'm not in a position add to that, Pete, or speculate. But I mean, look, the IRGC would have had, what we call a political commissar as part of the squad, if you like, and a person who is there not to keep an eye on the player for the, players for their welfare or their health or their football ability, but to keep an eye on them ideologically. Like the Soviet Union used to use. And I that person would have been acting as the arm of the IRGC, the enforcement. I don't know who that person was. Probably not part of the playing squad, but an auxiliary team support member. And whether they were one of the people stayed behind, that's really something the government would have to answer. But I mean the fact that we had seven people claim asylum and five have left within a matter of a week I find very troubling.

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PETE STEFANOVIC: Yeah. And look that's a big chunk of their support base, is it not? I mean, going from seven to two, if you're the remaining two members you must be thinking, "Well, do we just follow them back home as well?

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DAVE SHARMA: Well, yeah. Look, obviously because I don't discount how big a decision it is to the idea that you would seek asylum and make your life somewhere else, and sever all your ties with your home country. Of course, that's a big and consequential decision, and it would be easier and less intimidating if these two remaining players had more company.

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PETE STEFANOVIC: Let’s talk about some other issues now, Dave. I mean, when it comes to national security, it, it's been well-spoken about our lack of it. We've only got two refineries here, we've only got 30-odd days. The requirement is 90, but the government tends to lean on 90 as a whole, 60 of those days staying in the United States when supply chains get cut off it's a huge problem closer to home, but this was something that Angus Taylor organized when he was in power. Do you think that this needs to be rethought? Would you be open to putting up a policy where we need to rethink this, and perhaps invest in more refineries back home?

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DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think we do need to invest more in our fuel supply resilience and storage, if you like, Peter. I just would make this point, because the opposite side of the government throws this around a lot. But when we left government in 2022, the world was quite a different place. Since that time, we've had the Russia-Ukraine into its fourth or fifth year. It started just before we left office. And we've had a conflict in the Middle East now which has been going for two and a half years basically. Now of course that is going to need to change your calculations about how much you can rely upon the integrity of global supply chains to meet your fuel needs. But the government seems to take the view that this is set and forget, and I think that has been a gross misgiving. The other thing, I think, the obvious point is that we are now facing an inflationary crisis. A supply shock inflation caused by spiking oil prices, and the government has not used the last year and a half of relatively calm global economic times to get inflation under control, or to get government spending under control. So all of our shock absorbers for this sort of a crisis have been completely shredded.

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PETE STEFANOVIC: Didn't save for a rainy day. Do you suspect that there will be a, a rate rise tomorrow?

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I hope not, Pete, along with everyone else. But I think if you look at what markets are expecting, after the monthly inflation figures we had, 3.8% just in the last monthly figures, the overwhelming component of which was homegrown, that is domestic inflation. You add that to the oil shock, I don't think any reserve, any central bank that takes its challenge to keep inflation between 2% and 3% seriously not have that front and centre of their mind.

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PETE STEFANOVIC: So just back on oil, we'll have to close on this one, and, and the New South Wales government's got its own roundtable to, to deal with. We've spoken about potentially increasing the amount of refineries down the track. That's long-term though. Short-term, I mean, what else needs to happen? I mean, the standard of fuel's been lowered by Chris Bowen to try and get more petrol into the region. Still absent on diesel, by the way. Excuse me. What else could be done short-term to try and fix this crisis, because I mean, the Energy Secretary in the US said overnight that he expects this to be done in weeks. Can we really be that ambitious?

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DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think the most important thing, Pete, is for the government to communicate clearly and frankly with the public. I mean, you can't have a situation where Chris Bowen last week said, "There's no issue," and then said, "Well, the only issue is panicked buying by consumers." And then a few days later he releases, lowers fuel quality standards, and releases more from our stockpile. I mean, they're very mixed messages. And of course in that sort of situation you are going to get people panicked buying or hoarding. And I think the government needs to be communicating clearly, how much have we got? What are the risks? What are our supply routes in? And as you pointed out, the measure they've announced is welcome, but it doesn't do anything to improve the supply of diesel, which is overwhelmingly the economic input into other forms of economic activity in Australia.

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PETE STEFANOVIC: Okay. We’ll have to leave it there, Dave. But good to see you this morning. Thank you. We're going to take a break.

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[ENDS]