The Southern Cross hangs low and dim,
Above the Pilbara’s rusted rim.
Where once the iron mountains bled,
The road trains sit in dust instead.
A continent of vast design,
Held hostage by a shipping line,
With thirty days of diesel left—
Of energy and grace bereft.
To blunt the sharp, systemic pain.
But four-point-one is not a shield
When Hormuz and the Gulf won’t yield.
“Epic Fury” clouds the west,
Putting “sovereignty” to the test;
While Singapore’s refined supply
Is choked beneath a blackened sky.
The junior miners stand alone,
With dry tanks and a dial tone.
The “30-day” strategic lie
Is mirrored in the voter’s eye.
No longer “lucky,” just un-synced,
With older logic now extinct.
A digital and fuel-starved age,
A nation locked within a cage.
The red earth waits, the market sighs,
As interest and the mercury rise.
The engine stutters, starts to stall—
The heavy cost of having it all.
Australia’s Fuel Buffer
John McCormick’s poem warns that Australia’s shrinking fuel buffer leaves the nation exposed to supply shocks. The small Thirty-Day Buffer is a big risk.
Related: Australia Fuel Buffer Tested as Iran War Squeezes Diesel Supply
