But on a day when oil surged towards $US130 a barrel, Wall Street tanked and commodity price panic went up a notch, it was perhaps Morrison’s offhand remarks that should remind business that this “radical uncertainty” will get worse before it gets better.
Deviating from his prepared remarks, Morrison said his government was closely watching “how bad it might get [in Ukraine] and is likely to get” and predicted “supply interruptions for many months to come” as turmoil in the commodity markets flowed through global trade.
Australia, as Morrison argued, is relatively well-placed. As one of the CARBN group of commodity exporters – Canada, Australia, Russia, Brazil and Norway – we should be able to withstand and even benefit economically from the dislocations caused by the sanctions on Russia and the conflict in Ukraine.
But Morrison painted a picture of a world where tensions between liberal democracies and autocratic…
