Asian countries will be pressured to remove fuel subsidies that "distort" the demand for petrol and push up prices, the federal government says.
The Rudd government argues subsidies and price caps prescribed by Asian countries to promote development are artificially inflating prices across the region.
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says the government will lobby for the subsidies to be removed.
"We can put pressure on other countries to remove subsidies that do distort choices that people make and do reduce the extent to which they can move into other technologies," Mr Tanner told the Nine Network.
"But of course we can't force them to make those changes."
Mr Tanner said there was a "once in a lifetime" transformation occurring in Asia with hundreds of millions of people moving from basic peasant lifestyles to more resource intensive ones.
This benefits Australia by driving the commodity boom "but at the same time they're also demanding more petrol", he said.
"That's putting huge upward pressure on petrol prices and outstripping demand and of course we have to pay those global petrol prices as well," Mr Tanner said.
Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has said "the challenge of dealing with energy subsidies in our region is a serious one".
"When it comes to energy, particularly oil, the world is retreating from the open markets and free trade we have worked so hard to achieve," he said.
The government could use the regional Energy Working Group and the East Asian Summit's Energy Cooperation Task Force to lobby for the abolition of subsidies and price caps.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Andrew Robb told Sky News it was a bit presumptuous of Australia to be lecturing Asian countries.
"It's a really difficult issue not just for the Asian countries but ... for every country in the world," he said.
"The best thing for us is to look at our own affairs in the first instance, that way you then have some credibility in lecturing others."
Mr Robb said there had been a recent pattern of "gratuitous advice" by the Rudd government, which had lectured the international community on a variety of issues, including nuclear weapons, an Asia Pacific union and OPEC about petrol.
"There has been this frenzy of gratuitous advice that we've been providing to our neighbours," he said.
"(They've been) putting it out by press release with no discussion. There is an Asian way of diplomacy and it seems to have gone over the head of (Prime Minister Kevin) Rudd."
AAP
service station.The Australian Government is to lobby Asian counties to reduce fuel subsidies and price caps in a bid to lower fuel prices, which the Government argues that fuel subsidies are artificially inflating fuel prices across the Asia-Pacific region.

Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson said that the Rudd Government does not want to be critical of countries which have used the subsidies to help promote development, however he said that "the challenge of dealing with energy subsidies in our region is a serious one".

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Andrew Robb told Sky News Australia that "it was a bit presumptuous of Australia to be lecturing Asian countries". 

"The best thing for us is to look at our own affairs in the first instance, that way you then have some credibility in lecturing others".