Australia to offer businesses cheap loans to ease fuel cost pressure

Australia will provide up to A$1 billion in interest-free loans to critical businesses, including transport operators and fertiliser producers, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday, as they struggle with surging fuel costs.



The support package comes as the Iran war disrupts global energy supplies, driving up prices and stoking concerns about availability in a country that imports more than 80% of its fuel. Fear of shortages has provoked panic buying in some regions, despite government assurances that the market is well supplied.



"No government can promise to eliminate the pressures this crisis will impose. But we can be a buffer against the worst of it. A shock absorber, in a time of global shocks," Albanese said in a speech to the National Press Club.



The cheap loans will be offered to businesses considered essential to maintaining critical supply chains, helping them to ride out the immediate financial pressure.



Albanese said the move to provide loans underscores his centre-left Labor government's focus on easing cost-of-living pressures, a priority that will shape next month's federal budget.