Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The last time I checked, Member for Corio, which was when I took a drive around my electorate yesterday, the price of petrol ranged, as you would know, from $1.33 in Cranbourne to $1.30 in Narre Warren. So much for petrol prices coming down! That comment signalled the complacency of the Howard government over petrol prices and their effects on the community—and my electorate knows more than most the effects of petrol prices on the community. Remember that my electorate has the highest rate of mortgages in Australia, the highest rate of couples with dependent children in Australia and one of the highest rates of motor car usage in Australia. These are working people who have been affected by petrol price increases. These are the ones who have generated our current economic prosperity but are now faced with huge petrol costs with no relief in sight.

Given the large number of families in the area of my electorate, these people need a car—and to pay a lot more for petrol—to take their kids to school, to child care, to sport or to the doctor. Because many of my constituents work outside the area, these people need to drive to work, particularly the large number of tradespeople who live in my electorate. The government has given them no relief from petrol prices, but I will tell you what it has given them: the Work Choices legislation which, as we have seen, is ripping away job security and, even worse—particularly for the tradespeople in my electorate—the government’s intention to employ cheap foreign labour in many of the trades and areas that my constituents work in.

The sustained high price of petrol is having devastating consequences and effects in my area. Parents are being forced to tighten their belts. I hear so many stories of financial pressure and of the way that people are starting to worry about servicing their mortgages. Take, for example, the stories from the Casey North information and support service, which provides support and information services to suburbs in my electorate like Narre Warren, Narre Warren North, Narre Warren South, Berwick and Hallam. In the financial year of 2004-05, Casey North provided $1,500 in petrol vouchers. With the massive rise in petrol prices and the increasing demand for these vouchers, Casey North has since purchased $3,500 worth of vouchers, an increase of 133 per cent—and it still cannot keep up with the demand. These are not voucher requests from the poor people in these areas; these requests are from the working families in these areas. As a consequence of this demand, Casey North will only provide vouchers in the most extreme set of circumstances, such as medical treatment or picking up kids from school, and people will have to be turned away.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Look at the basic hits that the residents of my area have copped. In May there was an interest rate rise that added between $33 and $37 per month to the average mortgage of families in Narre Warren and Cranbourne. If you compare the price of fuel in early 2005 to that now, families in these areas are paying up to $52 a month for petrol per car. Most of the families in my electorate have two cars, so that is an additional $104 per month. The government has made much of its tax cuts in my area. Many in my electorate have an income of between $40,000 and $60,000 per annum. The government’s tax cuts in the budget work out to be $ 9.80 per week, so roughly $40 per month. That is not even covering the increase in petrol costs. So families in my area are seriously worried.

Yet while they are suffering, oil companies are making gigantic profits. For example, the profits of companies like Exxon Mobil and the other companies which produce much of the petrol that we consume are expected to exceed $134 billion this year. In fact, the chairman of Exxon Mobil, Lee Raymond, has an income of $200,000 per day and a retirement package of $400 million. When the price of petrol hit $US1.20 a litre in America, George Bush hit the panic button and demanded that the equivalent of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigate price gouging and price profiteering. But what has happened in this country? Absolutely nothing, even though the government has the capacity to intervene under part 7A of the Trade Practices Act. The government has sat on its hands and done absolutely nothing, unlike George Bush. It is a disgrace and it is a betrayal of the families in my area. (Time expired)

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