Topics: Fuel excise, Cost of living, Strait of Hormuz

ALISON PIOTROWSKI: Welcome back to Today. And Aussie motorists are getting well-deserved relief this Easter long weekend with petrol prices set to fall even further after state premiers agreed to give back the GST windfall on fuel. Joining us to discuss today's headlines is Liberal Senator Dave Sharma and Independent MP Dai Le. Thank you both for joining me this morning and in studio on a Good Friday. I appreciate the effort. Dave, I'll start with you. This could save motorists up to 32 cents 26 cents a litre. I mean, you've got to give it to the government. They've done something right here.

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DAVE SHARMA: Yeah. So look, the fuel excise levy cut will save 26 cents. The GST cut will save 6 cents. This is something that we in the opposition were calling for. I think it's good. It's temporary relief. The one thing I am concerned about is the potential inflationary impacts of this relief down the track. I think there's a good case for it in the short term, but longer term, we need to make sure that government spending is not fuelling inflation and causing the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates.

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ALISON PIOTROWSKI: Absolutely. And a big question mark still over our fuel But in terms of fuel supply, this doesn't tackle the issue at all, does it, Dai? It's not clear what our fuel supply will look like at the end of the month.

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DAI LE: Look, going back to fuel excise, I've been calling for this since 2022 when I was on this program talking about the cost of living. And it's great to see the government kicking and screaming. And now the opposition saying that they pushed for it. And I think some of our crossbench pushed for that. But anyway, whoever - it doesn't matter who claimed the credit. It does. The community will benefit, but I know that there are still people struggling. They said that the $0.26 or $0.32 now with the GST is not going to really make such a huge dent in their overall budget at home because obviously we've seen the increase in food, groceries, rent, insurance costs. And I saw a truckie the other day. He said, this is not going to do anything for us because of course I've got other to being a costs truckie as well. And of course, the shortage of diesel, because diesel is one of the most used, you know, we use more diesel than we produce here in Australia. And the fertilizer, how do we guarantee fertilizer and diesel for farmers?

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ALISON PIOTROWSKI: We can't do any of that until the Strait of Hormuz opens. Dave Penny Wong joined talks with other nations to work out a plan for the Strait of Hormuz overnight. We don't know any of the details yet. Do you think we're going to get a clearer picture in the coming days? How are we going to get this strait open?

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DAVE SHARMA: I think we will get a clearer picture in the coming days. I mean, there's been these talks in London overnight. Australia was involved in those. There's talks happening in the UN Security Council in New York about potentially a UN Security Council resolution which would give authorisation for countries to use military force to patrol the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf states in particular, the countries that export through the Strait of Hormuz— Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait— they've got a huge interest in getting this open. And I think once we see hostilities begin to wind down, which the US president gave an indication of in his speech last night, over the next 2 to 3 weeks.

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ALISON PIOTROWSKI: I put a big question mark on that, Dave.

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DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think America has their own interests in winding back this operation pretty soon, and I think that will give space for the diplomacy to work to get this strait reopened. So look, I'm on the more optimistic side there that we will see this resolved in the next 3 to 4 weeks.

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ALISON PIOTROWSKI: Look, I hope you're right, Dave, but I'm not sure I agree. I did want to get some comments from you, Dave, about some breaking news. We've just heard that Australia is being slugged a 100% tariff on pharmaceuticals in a fresh blow delivered by Donald Trump this this morning. That's pretty grim if it's true.

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DAVE SHARMA: Yes. Look, I haven't seen the— I've seen the reports, but I haven't— I couldn't find it. Then if so, yes, it's pretty grim and it's something we should certainly argue very strongly against. I mean, we have made a number of— we have a free trade agreement with the United States. We've made a number of trade concessions to them, including with respect to US beef, to make sure we avoided the worst of tariffs on other products if this had been imposed unilaterally. We should be out there arguing very strongly against this move.

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ALISON PIOTROWSKI: Look, it's just so concerning. We're beholden to Donald Trump, and Donald Trump appears to be negotiating with himself and only himself at the moment. Look, finally, let's go for a change of pace and get some good news. A Qantas pilot was given the surprise of his life when he found out his mum would be accompanying him on his maiden voyage. Take a look.

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[CLIP STARTS]

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ISAAC: Hi, my name is Isaac, and today is my first flight on the Airbus A220 with QantasLink.

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[CLIP ENDS]

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DAI LE: I was going to say, my son would say, do not hug me, what are you doing here? He would push me away.

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ALISON PIOTROWSKI: So that was a very sweet, son and mother kind of hugging.

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DAI LE: Beautiful. I love it.

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DAVE SHARMA: I think it would make him very nervous though, his first flight, the fact that his mom's there like every bump, you know.

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ALISON PIOTROWSKI: You mean you wouldn't be inviting your mom along for a flight? Dave, Di, thank you both for joining me this morning.

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DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much. Happy Easter.

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DAI LE: Happy Easter, everybody.

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[ENDS]