Trump cancels Iran strikes, fuel excise ends + Aus wins Comm Games

**Chris Spyrou** (0:08)
Hey, it's Chris Spyrou with you. Happy Monday and welcome to The Briefing.
Ahead of his much-talked-about return to the golden microphone next week, The Briefing scored a sit-down with none other than Kyle Sandilands. Audiences are being promised an unfiltered, uncensored Kyle, but what will that actually look like? Who's the controversial figure he's booked in for week one? And does he take any accountability for the implosion of his $200 million radio empire? A seven-minute tirade started...

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:36)
Oh, they're your words, not mine. You know what, I'm offended by the tirade. I think you're quite a clever man. That's not me in a tirade.

**Peter Currie** (0:43)
If you listen, I'm trying to stop it.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:47)
My interview with Kyle Sandilands will be in your feeds right after this episode. First, though, it's time to get into the headlines with Sacha Barbour Gatt on Monday, the 3rd of August.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:58)
Hey, Chris, happy Monday, a not so happy Monday, though, for Aussie drivers who are being warned to expect prices to rise at the bowser now that the fuel excise discount has ended. Quick reminder of how we got here, back in April, the government slashed that excise by 32 cents a litre to take the sting out of storing prices. That discount was halved to 16 cents in July, and as of midnight last night, it's gone entirely.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:25)
Yes, but the government's warning us against panic buying, urging motorists to only buy as much fuel as they need, with experts predicting we won't cop it at the pump straight away, and it could take up to 10 days to filter through.

**Peter Currie** (1:38)
What we're expecting to happen with the national averages is that unleaded will go over $2 a litre, and so you'll see retail prices start to nudge over that $2 litre mark. We will see the wholesale price for diesel heading closer to the mid 240s, and so we'll start to see those diesel prices go up. Now the flip side, of course, is that in addition to the excise going up, we have to monitor what happens with oil prices.

**Chris Spyrou** (2:02)
That was NRMA's Peter Currie speaking there. So in terms of oil prices, that's very much depending on what's going on with the US-Iran war. And as to the latest, Donald Trump has claimed the US is holding off any attack against Iran.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (2:15)
Yeah, so this came in a Truth Social post yesterday. The president said the US was locked and loaded and ready to strike Iran at levels not seen since World War II, but claims Iran and other Middle Eastern nations have asked him to hold off. He says he's willing to, provided a deal is reached, in his words, rapidly, one that would include the immediate, complete and total reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran's nuclear threat. Meantime, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince has been on the phone to Trump, urging him to choose dialogue over more missiles, while Iranian state media has given no sign Tehran actually asked for those strikes to be pulled, or that it shifted its position on the Strait at all. So I heard a stat in one report that was saying, in the lead up to the last ceasefire, which was signed in mid-June, Donald Trump flagged that an announcement was imminent 38 times.
However, I guess this is the first shift in his rhetoric around this. He's been saying for the last week, two weeks, we're going to hit them hard, we're going to beat the f***ing s*** out of them, like very strong language that was clearly him on the offence. This is the first time we've seen him kind of say, oh, well, I've been asked to hold off and I'm going to hold off because we might be getting closer to a deal. So it's worth noting, it's worth reporting and it's worth keeping an eye on.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:34)
It's believed Australia has entered a dangerous new phase in the spread of bird flu.
Authorities have now tested a group of 80 birds found sick or dead off South Australia over the weekend with fears they may have been infected by the H5 strain of the virus. The mass mortality event could signal another escalation in the outbreak, with the state's chief veterinary officer saying they'd been expecting this, but perhaps not so soon.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:58)
Yeah, and it comes after transmission of the H5 strain between native greater crested terns was seen for the first time last week. At this stage, there are still no cases confirmed in poultry or livestock, with extra precautions being taken to protect Australia's farmed birds. Now, results from the testing of the 80 sick or deceased birds that were found over the weekend, they are due back in the coming days. Experts, though, say it's pretty inevitable that these birds will be diagnosed with the H5 strain of bird flu, which is a real concern, and that's why authorities are saying it's a dangerous new phase that we're entering here. The federal health minister, Mark Butler, has also said that they are concerned about this recent increase in cases, and he does say that Australia is well-prepared to manage the impacts as best as possible. But you can't ignore what's happened globally. Hundreds of millions of poultry, so chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, have either died or been culled. There have been some shortages of meat and eggs. That is obviously not happening here right now. Hopefully, it never does, but it has happened overseas.