It may be that politicians, even if they are PO aware will be reluctant to speak out. When confronted with an unusual challenge or novel threat, the most common response of administrators is to ignore it. Errors of commission are seen to be worse than errors of omission. In business and public administration it is always good to be correct, but if one has to be wrong, it is best to be wrong at the same time as everyone else and if you don't do anything you can't do anthing wrong! From their point of view it is a no-brainer.

Tom Whipple put it this way:

“Thus, the real dilemma of coping (with) peak oil, for a while at least, is really quite simple. If the government should lay out the full ramifications of peaking in hopes of rallying the people to make preparations, the most immediate consequence is likely to be serious economic setback triggered by an unambiguous announcement itself.
The alternative is to remain silent. Leave the future a bit murky with room for hope. Don’t panic anybody into selling assets or husbanding their money with talk of an unaffordable future. Talk about reducing dependence of foreign oil instead. This carries the implication that the foreign oil will always be there in an emergency and that reducing dependence will be a matter of patriotic choice not necessity.
As no responsible government wants to see economic troubles start any sooner than absolutely necessary, there will probably never be a strong, clear, unambiguous, widely disseminated report on the timing of peak oil.”