‘Do I need to purchase camels?’ Australian preppers have found their voice since Covid, but tough questions remain

Prepper Trevor Andrei, who runs bushcraft courses, sits inside his shack north-west of Melbourne, Victoria. Photograph: Steve Womersley/The Guardian

Shortly after Israel announced its attack on Iran in June, Trevor Andrei sent a message to some of his fellow Australian preppers telling them to stock up on petrol and buy a few hundred dollars’ worth of groceries.

“I was like, OK, this is super significant, there’s going to be a response … shit’s going to go down,” Andrei says. “Most years, [Australia is] lucky if we’ve got 28 days [of petrol reserve] so … if anything hits the world’s oil supply, we can be out of petrol in a month.”