Treasurer Jim Chalmers has not ruled out a temporary cut to Australia’s fuel excise and heavy road user charge for trucks as part of the government’s emergency response to ongoing concerns about petrol and diesel supplies.

Fuel excise is a flat sales tax levied by Canberra on petrol and diesel bought at the bowser.

The current rate is 52.6 cents in excise for every litre of fuel purchased.

People driving heavy vehicles – such as buses, coaches, and trucks – on public roads pay a Road User Charge for each litre of diesel they buy.

During an appearance on the Today program, Chalmers was asked whether a cut to fuel excise could happen.

‘Do you categorically rule out the cuts to the fuel excise?’ host Karl Stefanovic said.

Chalmers avoided answering the question directly, but did not categorically say no.

‘What we’ve said about that, Karl, is we’ve focused more on supply, more on distribution, more on the rip offs, more on cost of living, relief in other ways, but obviously, we always have contingencies and fallbacks,’ he said.

‘(But) this government always tries to do the right thing by people, and we always try and help with the cost of living in the most responsible way that we can (by) weighing up a whole range of factors.’

During the heated interview, Stefanovic grilled Chalmers over the growing gap between the government’s claims of strong fuel supply and the reality facing Australians at the pump.

‘If the supply is there… why are stations running out?’ the host asked.

Chalmers pushed back, insisting the issue is not a national shortage but a breakdown in distribution driven by surging demand.

‘The ships are arriving, the refineries are doing their job… we have very substantial supplies of fuel,’ he said.

But he conceded there are ‘pressures in particular local areas’ and said the government is working with industry and regulators to redirect fuel where it is needed most.

‘It doesn’t make any sense to people that you’re saying the supply is there, the fuel is here, and we’re guaranteed that supply,’ Stefanovic added.

‘When some people in the regions are travelling hundreds of kilometres just to get fuel, that stations in the city areas have run out, the signs have literally gone out, the lights have gone out in some of these stations.

‘And for you to keep saying that, reiterating that there is supply when there isn’t in their local service station, when people are travelling hundreds of kilometres to get fuel and then going home, or they’ve got to work somewhere, and the expenses just keep rising and food prices keep rising, and you say everything’s okay, but it’s just not.’

On Thursday, the government confirmed 608 service stations across Australia were out of either diesel or unleaded fuel.

The number equates to about eight per cent of the nation’s 7,798 sites.