9 - NEWS IN BRIEF - 31st March 2026

0:00News in brief. We are all for national banking now. To address the crisis of fuel supplies, the Albanese government has turned to a national credit mechanism, Export Finance Australia, to help fund a desperate bid to buy shiploads of fuel that are part of the spot market. Export Finance Australia is essentially a public bank and insurer of the kind that many countries have, but using it in this way illustrates the reality that a solution can't be left up to the free market. Ironically, it wouldn't be necessary if Australia had used national banking all along to invest in a fuel-reserved domestic drilling and refining. Shuttering more of the world's oil and gas. While attention is focused on Iran, a massive escalation of Ukrainian NATO drone and missile attacks on Russian energy systems is underway. Apart from constant drone attacks on refineries and oil storage facilities in southern Russia and gas pipelines in the Black Sea, drone swarms hit Russia's largest oil export ports

1:02USD Luger and Primorsk on the Gulf of Finland in late March. Facilities were temporarily closed as fire engulfed the major ports for oil exports via the Baltic. A major oil refinery was also hit, and there are unconfirmed reports of damage to a steel maker and fertilizer producer. Will he tell Trump or just Sarah Ferguson? Based on ABC730 about signals that Trump is set to escalate the Iran War, PM Albanese called for a time frame or a clearer objective to be set. He argued that Trump can claim that he has achieved the objectives that he set out to. Pressed on what he will demand of Trump, he said, quote, I want to see a recognition of the economic damage that this conflict is continuing to result in. And I want to see any objective of what is to be achieved by further conflict rather than negotiation. And I want to see an end or a de-escalation to the conflict there, end quote.

2:03John Anderson Whitewash Amid the panic over Australia's fuel crisis, former National Party leader John Anderson has become a prominent voice to crying Australia's lack of sovereign capability. However, Anderson shares the blame personally. In 1998, as Transport Minister, he privatized the nation's shipping line, the Australian National Line A&L, to a foreign multinational leaving our island nation without a shipping capacity. On the 4th of December, 2000 he declared in Parliament, Australia is not a ship a nation but a shipping nation, i.e. we use shipping, we don't own shipping. Australia is now entirely dependent on foreign shipping to supply us in a global oil crisis. And I want to see an end or a de-escalation to the conflict there, end quote. And I want to see an end or a de-escalation to the conflict there, end quote.