I was going to write about our apathy but I just could not be bothered why however are we paying this much?
Why is LPG going up in price yet we export it?
Why can I get 600 klm from my company car on $55 worth of LPG at zero import costs but we still import expensive oil?
LPG runs cleaner we have plenty we can stop importing and start to address our balance of trade why is the west not looking harder for other fuels?
While oil prices rise profits do too we get deeper in debt via balance of trade why no action?
Apathy plays a part other than my weak attempt at humor we just do not complain enough about the price of fuel and the theft of our tax dollars it takes.
If our tax was spent on roads and research into new fuels it may be worth while but it is mostly used in general funds
Road transport kills as drivers try to do extra journeys to pay for higher fuel prices the issues are never ending why pay so much?
We can fight inflation by just changing fuels to LPG while waiting for other answers.
Or are we chained to fuel company's interests? is that the reason we pay too much?

The 'experts' are now suggesting that people do not convert to LPG as the cost has risen to a point where it is becoming uneconomical to have your car converted.

Small cars don't have boots big enough for LPG tanks.

If everybody switched to LPG, the cost would go up as governments taxed it.

The only way to bring petrol prices down is to stop buying it. It's all in the hands of consumers. Unfortunately, people don't seem to want to leave their cars at home and use public transport.

More to the point, if everybody converted to LPG it would run out quicker than it's going to anyway. Even from a strictly commercial point of view it probably makes sense to keep as much of it in the ground as we can for now. The same argument applies to uranium of course, but that's a more complicated issue.

Personally, since I live in the bush I bought a brilliant 4 cylinder turbo-diesel 4WD new last year, with a mind that when it runs out of its 6-year extended warranty it could well be advantageous to be able to run on biodiesel. Some people are already making their own around here.

I'm friendly with the local proprietor where I buy most of my fuel - it's also the general store, but his fuel prices are extremely competitive when compared with the larger towns in our district (and indeed against the capital cities sometimes, although we're 300km inland from Brisbane). My mate said today, in response to a question from another customer concerning the 14c/L increase in ULP prices overnight in Sydney, that in his view it's just price gouging. He'll increase his price if he has to after his next delivery. We agreed that it's bizarre that, even after the recent Inquiry, that this sort of blatant rip-off is allowed to occur.

Interestingly, he raised the issue of political donations by energy companies. There I was thinking I was the only greenie businessman in town !

Anyway, fair question Belly - why do we cop it?

Stop whingeing. A litre of beer is still between 5 and 10 times the price of petrol and as for bottled water....... Oil is a remakably valuable non-renewable resource and we are fools for squandering it.

While I'm not happy about paying more for fuel, I think we vastly underestimate oils worth. Especially if we compare to equivalent human effort. A human can sustain about 75 watts continuously, yet my back of envelope calculations suggest about 4000w can be obtained from a litre of diesel. Roughly 50 man hours, or $1000 per litre(assuming $20/hr).
Obviously I'm not taking into account machinery costs, but a 300KW tractor is doing the work of 4000 men at a fuel rate of 70 litres per hour. About 2.5 cents/man hour. It's no wonder mechanisation revolutionised agriculture, tying up less folk on the land - allowing them to do important stuff like being lawyers, politicians and tax collectors.

Then take into account that the modern diesel engine harnesses less than a third of the potential energy of that fuel.

I do not think I am asking for much when requesting we stay in touch with reality in this debate.
Public transport? what crimson public transport? even in our city's it is as handy as two men short in a tug of war team but non existent in rural Australia.
LPG if we used it to power every internal combustion engine in this country would last for a century.
We export more than we use.
I think of it only as a stop gap, have true doubts we are not suffering to protect the oil industry, we can develop new fuels faster.
I would love to have my old Rocky 4x4 turbo charged back but the reality of country living killed it.
My company car is factory fitted LPG only one, one of 8 in our fleet in has done 354.000 never had the motor touched.
Our highest mileage is over 500.000 never been pulled down.
Small cars can have small LPG tanks, city cars do not need 600 klm capacity.
I drive for 6 hours non stop some days, must do so.
Put nothing less than 80.000 each year on that cars clock.
Country people waiting for a bus to take them to town , sometimes 120 or double that klm will wait forever.
Trucks transporting what we all need to live travel tracks no trains exist on and do 3.000 klm at least a week.
The answer is not to spend billions we do not have on trains it is cheaper fuel .less inflation, less tax theft, more true concern for those who do not live in coastal city's.
Shopping on Saturday? 120 klm no buses in sight
And I live in near coastal mainstream village not the real bush.