Residents in rural communities hard-hit by rising fuel costs say even further price hikes will have major impacts on farmers, tourist operators and business owners already stretched thin.
It comes as the fuel excise increases by 25.3 cents per litre from September 29 when the government's temporary tax cut is lifted.
Already forking out 10-20 cents more per litre than their city counterparts, outback Queenslanders say they feel concerned at the lack of a solution.
"People are suffering out here. How long can people cope for? We really do need some relief in the not too distant future," Burke Shire Council Mayor Ernie Camp said.
Freight a big burden
Mr Camp, who runs 8,500 head of cattle on a remote station in the Gulf of Carpentaria, said the cost of freight was becoming a major burden on country businesses.
"Rural Australia runs on trucks and freight — all our goods, supplies, fuel, machinery is freighted in and out.
"At the moment, some of the freight companies have implemented a surcharge north of 30 per cent.
"And having that further increase once the duty is put back on is only going to increase the cost of freight further.
"It will certainly have a big impact," Mr Camp said.
"It seems the people who have the ability to make a difference don't have any solutions."
Bob Spilsbury spends about $3,000 a week freighting goods nearly 2,000 kilometres from Brisbane to his grocery store in the remote community of Boulia.
That is in addition to $300 a week spent on fuel driving the 600-kilometre round trip to Mount Isa to collect extra supplies.
He said the rising cost of fuel was the biggest burden on his business, the only place to get groceries in the community.
"It is forcing us to really streamline all other aspects of the business but it is hard to do when we can't get staff out here," he said.
"We're installing new software in our accounts system, we're streamlining goods in and goods out – anything we can to just try and do things differently and the most efficiently elsewhere in the business."
Rising costs changing face of outback tourism
Maryellen Boyd-Blacket and her husband run a caravan park in Boulia where they also raise their four children.
Ms Boyd-Blacket said the rising cost of fuel had changed the way people travelled during the recent tourist season.
"It is impacting the caravan park a lot.
"People aren't doing the big overseas trips as much and they are coming out to rural areas.
"But they are dropping $100,000 and then some for their rigs, which means they're getting them fully-equipped.
"That means they're not needing caravan parks as much because these rigs are all-inclusive.
"It means we just have to try and offer our nice facilities as best we can and that customer service aspect is very important."
She said she may have to consider raising her prices slightly.
"The only thing that hasn't gone up is our site costs at the park so that's something I definitely need to look into. We might have to bump it up a couple of dollars.
"It's definitely worrying, but what can you do?"
