Any war or bombings in Iran always brings with it a reflex thought of what will happen to oil prices and in turn how much we pay for petrol.
Fri 6 Mar 2026 00.00
Photo: AAP Image/Jay Kogler
Any war or bombing in Iran always brings with it a reflex thought of what will happen to oil prices and in turn how much we pay for petrol.
This, as much as anything, is past of the 50-year memory of what happening in the 1970s when the OPEC nation placed an oil embargo on after the Yom Kippur War, and then the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw a major drop in oil production in that country.
The 1973 crisis saw world oil prices rise 525% in a year (though off an extremely low base) which in 1979, the price rose 208%.
The impact on Australia fuel prices at the time was pretty brutal. In 1975 fuel prices rose 25% in a year, which in 1979 they went up 48%
The USA-Israel attack on Iran saw the world price of oil jump nearly 3% to US$72.87 a barrel at the start of the week – the highest it has been for more than 6 months, but still well down on the US$95 is hit in September 2023.
So, will the price of unleaded petrol go up?
Almost certainly, because there is a pretty strong long-term correlation between would oil prices and what we pay at the bowser. But that link is rather less than it used to be, but only when prices are falling, not rising:
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Earlier this week the Finance Minister and Minister for Women, Senator Katy Gallagher released the latest data of the gender pay gap by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
The claim that half of voters rely on the Government for 'most of their income' that has been repeated across the media and by politicians, simply isn't true.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has released their gender pay gap data today and while we took a tiny step closer to pay equity, men are still almost twice as likely to be in the highest earning quartile – earning more than $220,000.
