Fuel, Fear and the Hidden Cost of Getting to Market

Across Australia, the conversation about rising prices is often framed around groceries, rent and interest rates. But one of the most immediate pressures sits underneath almost everything else: fuel. When petrol and diesel rise sharply, the effect is not limited to the bowser. It moves through freight, food, packaging, deliveries, rides, services, and eventually through the stall table itself. That matters for consumers, and it matters even more for stallholders, because many of them are not just buying goods affected by transport costs — they are the transport system for their own business. The current picture is clear. The ABS says CPI was up 3.7% in the 12 months to February 2026, with housing up 7.2% and food and non-alcoholic beverages up 3.1%. At the same time, the ACCC’s latest weekly fuel monitoring update says international crude and refined fuel prices increased further in the past week, while retail petrol and diesel also rose, with diesel increases outpacing petrol. In plain English: households were already under pressure, and fuel is now threatening to push through another round of price stress. ABC has already reported what many small operators can feel before economists put a chart to it: fuel surcharges are spreading across a broad range of industries, from basic goods to services, and those extra costs are starting to land on consumers. That is the key point many people miss. Petrol is not just another bill. It is an input cost. Sometimes it hits directly, such as when a trader fills a van. More often it hits indirectly, inside the price of flour, packaging, freight, produce, cleaning supplies, courier fees, and even the coffee a customer thinks is suddenly “too expensive.” That is why the policy argument has become so sharp. Reuters reported this week that the Reserve Bank is openly worried that an energy shock could dislodge inflation expectations, and that is precisely the kind of development central bankers try to prevent from becoming embedded in the wider economy. The public logic is simple: if fuel rises spill into everything else, inflation can stay higher for longer, and interest rates can remain tighter than households want. The Guardian’s reporting goes even further into the tension. Economists quoted there argue that cutting the fuel excise would act like a political band-aid, because it could increase demand, worsen shortages and add to inflation. In other words, the pressure is being carried by drivers and small businesses partly because Canberra is trying to avoid a broader inflation blowout. That may be defensible in macroeconomic terms. It is much harder to defend when viewed from the seat of a trader’s van. And this is where market traders get squeezed in a way many city commentators do not fully understand. A salaried worker may feel fuel pain on the commute. A stallholder can feel it five times over. They drive to collect stock. They drive to storage or a factory. They drive to the market. They drive home. Then they do it again the next day in another suburb, another region, another council area. We spoke to a former stallholder who traded for about a decade in NSW and said he was covering around 500 kilometres a week attending markets. That already sounds heavy. But once you model the sort of route many traders actually do — leaving from Manly, returning via a factory in Revesby, then out again to markets such as City West, Hornsby, Parramatta, Gosford and Wollongong before getting home — the weekly travel can climb much higher. On a rough suburb-to-suburb routing estimate, that schedule can push toward roughly 875 kilometres a week, not 500. That is not a lifestyle choice. That is operating cost. This is why fuel inflation hits stallholders twice. First, as drivers. Second, as retailers buying into a supply chain that is also paying more for fuel. That same squeeze then reaches the customer, who is already nervous. Household demand had already shown signs of softness before the latest fuel shock, and the broader concern now is that consumers will become even more defensive in how they spend. When people feel poorer, they do not always stop spending altogether. They become selective, cautious, price-sensitive and suspicious. They compare. They hesitate. They postpone. They buy one instead of two. They still come to the market, but they no longer move through it the same way. That matters because markets depend on discretionary behaviour. A family that still needs milk, bread and fuel may no longer feel as relaxed about candles, art, gifts, homewares, gourmet treats or impulse food purchases. Even in food categories, the threshold for “too expensive” falls quickly when households start mentally adding up petrol, rent, insurance, power and mortgage repayments all at once. The result is not always empty markets. Often it is slower conversion: similar foot traffic, weaker basket size. Then there is the other layer consumers have started noticing more clearly: paying more and getting less. On that point, the frustration is real. A Guardian report this week, based on CHOICE analysis, found that some Easter chocolate products had become smaller and more expensive, with one Cadbury hollow egg pack costing almost 73% more per 100g than two years ago. That does not prove every category is shrinking. But it does confirm a wider feeling many Australians already have: prices rise, portions tighten, and value gets harder to trust. For market traders, that creates a brutal commercial problem. They face higher travel costs, higher input costs, and a customer base increasingly trained to suspect that everything is overpriced. Yet many stallholders do not have the margins, buying power or scale of supermarkets and national chains. They cannot spread cost shocks across hundreds of stores. They cannot bury freight inside giant procurement systems. They wear it in real time, market by market. There is also an uncomfortable historical reality worth correcting. It is tempting to say petrol “used to be under a dollar” and then sat under $1.20 for years. That memory exists, but it does not hold up well as a national long-run picture. ACCC data shows that even in 2020–21, when regional petrol prices were the lowest in 22 years, the average across more than 190 regional locations was still 127.6 cents per litre. So the real story is not that Australia has only recently crossed some long-stable threshold. The real story is that fuel has been a structural pressure for years, and the latest shock is piling on top of an already expensive base. That is why this matters beyond transport. Fuel is one of those costs that makes almost everything else worse without always being visible on the final receipt. It pushes freight. It pushes wholesale. It pushes perishables. It pushes service calls. It pushes event attendance costs. And in the markets world, where traders often rely on mobility, regional coverage and repeated weekend runs, it can quietly decide whether a stall remains viable at all. The macro story says government and the Reserve Bank are trying to stop an energy shock from becoming entrenched inflation. The lived story is harsher: the burden of that discipline is being felt on the road, at the bowser, in the van, and behind the trestle table. Consumers are pulling back. Inputs are rising. Trust in value is weakening. And stallholders — especially those driving long distances across NSW and beyond — are absorbing both sides of the squeeze. If fuel keeps rising, this will not just be a transport issue. It will be a markets issue. A food issue. A pricing issue. And for many small traders, a survival issue. Sources ABC News (fuel impact across industries) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-27/fuel-shortages-price-hike-businesses-consumers-inflation/106497260 Reuters (RBA warning on inflation / energy shock) https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/rba-warns-prolonged-middle-east-war-could-hit-growth-unmoor-inflation-2026-03-25/ The Guardian (fuel excise / inflation pressure) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/25/australia-fuel-excise-tax-petrol-shortages ABS (CPI data Australia) https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release ACCC (weekly fuel monitoring update) https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/publications/weekly-fuel-price-monitoring-update Additional verification ACCC (historical petrol prices context) https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-petrol-prices-in-2020-21-were-lowest-in-22-years The Guardian / CHOICE (shrinkflation example) https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/mar/23/chocolate-easter-egg-shrinkflation-cadbury-choice-finding