"It'll Ruin The Weekend" Bowen Says Of Landcruiser

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen has today confirmed that the weekend is, in fact, under threat.

"It's the LandCruiser that's ruining the weekend these days," Bowen said, after being shown fuel dockets from city drivers now paying north of $400 to fill a 79 Series.

"Back in 2019, Scott Morrison said EVs would end the weekend. Turns out it was diesel at three bucks a litre."

The Minister's comments come as families across Australia are being forced to choose between a weekend away and filling up a vehicle that was originally designed to cross the Simpson Desert but now mostly fords dips in a supermarket carpark.

"We used to go up to Lake Betoota every long weekend," said Brett Hannigan, a fertiliser salesman from Betoota Heights who bought a dual-cab LandCruiser in 2021 because he liked how it looked with a rooftop tent on it.

"Now I can't afford to get past the edge of town. I've done the numbers. It's cheaper to fly to Bali than drive to Mooloolaba. The repayments are killing me."

Actual farmers, meanwhile, say the conversation feels familiar.

"City blokes and their fucking townie cousins pay for overs for every LandCruiser on the market, they've driven the waitlist out to two years and now they're complaining it costs too much to run," said one grazier from outside Quilpie.

"Welcome to our world, except we don't have the option of driving our apprentice's Triton, do we? We need to get on our spraying now for winter cropping but we might not have the fuel to put it in, let alone strip it. Because we have plumbers that drive Landcruisers these days, the cunce."

Bowen said the government had no plans to intervene in fuel pricing or vehicle choice, but acknowledged there was a certain irony in the situation.

"In 2019, they said electric cars couldn't tow your boat. Now petrol costs so much you can't afford to tow your boat either. The weekend was fucked either way."

More to come.