Updated September 4, 2026 — 11:16am,first published September 4, 2026 — 5:00am
You can’t blame Australians for seeing fuel prices over the past few months and deciding to ditch their petrol-powered cars.
As Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock pointed out at a recent press conference, petrol prices are one of the most visible — and therefore memorable — prices, with most of us passing a petrol station somewhere on our daily commutes.
While petrol prices have fallen from their peak of about $2.50 a litre in our major cities earlier this year, they’re still hovering at about $2 a litre after the government’s fuel excise discount ended in August. That’s about 20 cents more expensive per litre than the average petrol price across our major cities in 2025.
Fuel prices are significant — not just because they make up about 3 per cent of an Australian household’s spending — but because they affect how much it costs for businesses, especially in the transport, farming and aviation sectors, to provide their goods and services.
