KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Kevin Rudd, if we can start with oil. You and Brendan Nelson are both arguing over very small savings at the bowser, although his small savings are bigger than your small savings.

But isn't it time to look Australians in the eye and tell them the news is only going to get worse on oil?

KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER: Kerry, on global oil prices, no one that I can speak to, either within the Government, that is the Treasury who are looking at the long range forecasting here, or abroad, can give you any confidence about where global oil prices will be in three, six, nine, 12 months time.

[Maybe he should have asked somebody at The Oil Drum?]

So this is a massive shock to the global economy. It's happening across all economies at present. What we need to do is frame an intelligent, long term response to this, and Australia as of when we took over Government did not have a long term energy strategy, a fuel strategy.

[We need some really big binoculars.. see the GetUp! FuelWatch ad]

We're working on that, six months into office, and we hope to have something to produce later in the year on that score. Dealing with the long term channel, as well as being mindful of the impact on people's hip pocket now.

So, just in case we didn't get the message from Kerry's interview with Kevin, he interviewed Richard Heinberg (again). There is no attempt to pull the wool over our eyes here: Thursday Night: The end of the petroleum age