Australians are being forced to choose between fuel and food – and it’s only getting worse

SecondBite CEO Daniel Moorfield on how the fuel crisis is driving demand for food relief. 

Right now, more Australians are being forced to choose between putting petrol in the car and putting food on the table. 

That’s not a future scenario. It’s happening today. 

SecondBite sees the frontline every day, working with communities across the country, and we’ve seen a clear shift.  

More people are asking for help and more of them are doing so for the first time.  

To understand just how widespread it is, we commissioned new national research through the SecondBite Food Insecurity Sentiment Survey, in partnership with YouGov, and it confirmed what we’re seeing on the ground. 

Nearly three in five Australians are now worried they won’t be able to afford food in the months ahead. Almost all are feeling the pressure of rising costs, with food emerging as the number one concern ahead of fuel and energy. 

But statistics only tell part of the story.  

Across our network of nearly 900 frontline charity partners, from community centres and schools to women’s shelters and Indigenous health services, we are seeing a clear and consistent shift. 

Demand is rising in every community.  

The people seeking support are also changing.  

These are not just Australians experiencing entrenched disadvantage. Increasingly, they are working families, people with jobs, dual income households – people doing what should be enough and still finding themselves unable to make ends meet.   

Cost-of-living pressures have eroded the buffer many households once relied on, with rising fuel prices exposing just how little room is left to absorb further increases.

At Pathway Community Centre in Adelaide, demand for food relief has surged in just a matter of weeks. What was once around 150 households a day has climbed to as many as 175, with a sharp increase in people seeking help for the first time. The team on the ground say they’ve never seen such a measurable increase in such a short period of time.  

Behind those numbers are difficult, everyday decisions.  

One woman recently told staff she had been going without food so she could afford petrol to get to work.  

This is not an isolated story. It reflects what we are hearing right across the country.  

In Narrogin, 200km south-east of Perth, another SecondBite partner is seeing the same pattern. People are travelling more than an hour for food relief, often sharing cars to reduce fuel costs or spacing out visits because they can no longer afford the trip each week.  

Some are farm workers whose shifts have been cut as fuel costs rise, leaving them unable to cover rent and bills and forcing them to turn to food relief for the first time.  

In regional and outer suburban communities, these pressures are even more pronounced. Higher living costs and long travel distances mean some people are not only struggling to afford food – they are struggling to access it at all.  

At the same time, the organisations supporting them are under growing strain. Staff report regularly running out of food, even as supply increases, while rising fuel costs are also driving up the cost of collecting and distributing donations.  

This is what food insecurity looks like in modern Australia. It is not always visible, but it is widespread and it is growing.  

SecondBite exists to respond to this need. Every year, we rescue and redistribute more than 25 million kilograms of surplus food, turning it into meals for Australians doing it tough.  

In a country that wastes millions of tonnes of edible food each year, more Australians are now skipping meals to fill their cars. 

We have the infrastructure, partnerships and experience to scale our response, but we can’t do it alone.  

What gives us hope is the way Australians continue to step up for one another – businesses donating surplus food, volunteers giving their time and communities backing their neighbours when times are tough. 

But without urgent and sustained Government support, food relief organisations will struggle to keep pace with the level of demand we are now seeing.  

This is a moment for coordinated action.  

Because no one in Australia should have to choose between fuel and food.