The great Australian sport of panic-buying

 When the brainless orange dirigible and his psychopathic zionist sidekick started bombing Iran three weeks ago, petrol prices immediately spiked. And I mean immediately. It didn't take days for the changes to occur. Iranians were still shaking the dust out of their hair (not to mention burying 165 murdered schoolgirls) after the first missiles landed in Tehran and the oil companies were jacking up the price of petrol. 

The petrol for which we had been paying around $1.78 per litre, overnight jumped to $1.98, then $2.19 and, well, you know the rest.

But a related phenomenon also occurred. Hardware stores around the country reported that there had been a run on jerry cans. Locally here in Braidwood, the hardware store completely sold out of jerry cans by lunchtime on the first day of Trump and Netanyahu's illegal war. The big city hardware chains were reporting a similar trend. 

The videoed footage of some greedy bastard at a servo in Sydney, filling up his 1000litre tank with diesel and driving off into the gathering twilight caused something of a national outrage. But then, wasn't everyone else doing the same thing - albeit on a smaller scale? 

The Australian Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, on being apprised of this development, assured Australians that there was no immediate shortage of fuel and that "panic buying jerry cans is unAustralian."

Actually, Chris, old mate, if recent history is anything to go by, panic-buying is very Australian. In fact, it's a quintessential part of our national identity. A national sport, as it were. When something looks like it might be in short supply, what do Aussies do? We rush out and buy as much of it as we possibly can! Bugger anyone else. Just so long as we've got our own individual arses covered we're all good, mate.

Cartoon credit: Cathy Wilcox

Such short memories, we have. When the first Covid lockdowns were announced the supermarkets were cleaned out of toilet paper. Then pasta, canned goods, longlife milk and so on. There was, of course, no shortage of any of these commodities, but that didn't stop half the population rushing out to stockpile as much as they could possibly fit in their garages - leaving the other half of the population with not enough to go around.

Why do we do this?

OK, disclaimer: I'm no psychologist and I don't claim any expertise in behavioural science. I do, however, have a theory on this. As regular readers of my ramblings will know, I have a theory on most things so stick with me here ...

We live in a country of plenty. We have plenty of food, plenty of space, plenty of things to distract us from the plenty of less pleasant things going on in the world. Yes, there's poverty and a housing crisis that no one is getting any closer to solving (I have a theory on that too), but compared to some places, we've pretty much got it all. We've golden soil and wealth for toil and we're bloody well not going to share it. 

When something happens to disturb our confidence in there being enough of everything, we panic. Suddenly there may not be plenty. What happens if I go to the supermarket and there's not enough [insert commodity here]? So I'd better buy twice as much as I need just in case.   

As an interesting comparison, during the Black Summer Bushfires we shared everything. People in this town opened their homes to others who had been evacuated, we shared food, boarded people's animals in backyards. We shared information, checked up regularly on neighbours and the elderly and made sure every last one of us was looked after and had what they needed. For three months we lived as a fully cooperative community ... then Covid hit and it was hand-to-hand combat in the supermarket aisles for the last bog roll! Why? Because with the fires we knew what we were facing and decisions were, in many cases, life or death. Information was available and there was a measure of calm in the face of the storm. 

Covid was an unknown factor. It was something that was out of control and no one could predict what would happen. The same with the current situation. We have no way of knowing how long this is going to last or the ways in which it will affect us, directly or indirectly. So the response of many people is to control what they can - which means buying up as much of the limited commodity as possible.

Being, as we are, girt by sea, is both a blessing and a curse. Our national sense of isolationism gives us confidence in our capacity for self-reliance, but it also weakens our position when imports run up against a hurdle - such as a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. 

Fortunately, there are people who actually do have expertise in psychology and behavioural science and who have theories on this too - based on actual research and data analysis. Check it out. And please stop buying up all the fuel.