Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The technical issues of the Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2006 have been well canvassed in debate so far. Suffice to say, these are important amendments that are being made that will repeal the Petroleum Retail Marketing Franchise Act and the Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act and put in place a regime about petroleum retail issues that is much more contemporary. For instance, if you look at the nature of the way that retail sales of petrol have changed so rapidly over the last few years with the two major supermarket chains entering into the sale in this sector, you can see that it is a very important measure that is being taken by this legislation. As members on this side have indicated, it is a measure that really should have been taken much earlier because a lot of what has been spoken about, in terms of the reasons for these amendments, has been known. It is only that we have got to the point where we have something like 50 per cent of the industry by volume of sales in the control of supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths that we see some action. I do not think that this would be heartening news for those very many franchisees and independent operators that have already hit the wall and perhaps could have been saved by earlier action such as that intended by these pieces of legislation.

One of the extraordinary aspects of the debate is that there has been only one backbench contribution from the government. One backbench member has decided that they would step forward and come up to the plate to support the minister on this piece of legislation. That leads us to ask whether, at a time when the retail price of petrol to consumers in Australia is at a record high, those that sit opposite actually understand that this is a problem. This is a problem with a capital P and, as the song says, ‘P rhymes with T, and that is trouble.’ Trouble! This is trouble for the thousands of Australian families that are trying to come to grips with the hardship that is placed on their budgets by the increase in fuel prices at the same time as increasing interest rates. In conjunction with the amount of money that they are paying off their mortgages, this has sent the family budgets into record levels.

For those whom I represent on the northern urban fringe of Melbourne—basically people who are dependent upon an employer-employee relationship—the devastating effects of Work Choices and the way in which workplaces operate are also of concern, because there is a bottom line. Since the new industrial relations legislation, the families that are being most impacted on by the increases in interest rates and petrol prices are lacking in certainty about the continuation of their jobs. This is not addressed by the way in which those opposite have taken this debate so lightly.

Last Thursday, when the debate started, they were scurrying around, there seemed to be nothing on the horizon and they were not sure whether the boss was going to do anything or if the Prime Minister would actually understand the problem. Straight after question time, the Prime Minister gave his second prime ministerial statement in two days—his second this year, I might add. They were the only two prime ministerial statements for the whole of 2006. He spent half an hour on issues related to petrol price increases. These issues are germane to the intentions of this bill because this bill and the second reading introduction by the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources talked about the gains to consumers of a more efficient petroleum retail sector.

In his statement today the Prime Minister indicated that part of the reason for his statement was to announce a number of measures to assist hard-pressed motorists to better cope with the very high petrol prices—cope! I would have thought, given this grand display—$1½ billion of new money to be spent on this issue—that someone would scurry out of the rabbit holes that the members of the coalition have gone into. Surely they think that this small piece of legislation is a step forward, plus that the Prime Minister’s statement would give them a bit of courage to come forward—or perhaps they have decided that, again, what the Prime Minister announced today was lacking in substance and was smoke and mirrors.

I might be a little charitable about the Prime Minister’s statement in that perhaps it indicates that he has started to define the questions and problems that his government needs to address. I do not know whether he bothered to have different people throughout the departments or his department come up and list those problems, but I would suggest to him that—if he just bothered to read the second reading amendment that has been moved by the member for Batman and seconded by the member for Hunter, who have carriage of issues to do with not only resources but also the petrol market—he would not have needed further investigation, because many of the issues that he raised in his prime ministerial statement are included in the second reading amendment, where we say that they need to be addressed.

Regrettably, whilst there may be some acknowledgement of the questions and problems, the solutions offered fall far short of the mark. One has to ask whether this grand statement made today is really just something of a gesture: the running of a small flag up the flagpole, saying: ‘Oh, yeah. We know there is a problem. But, look! We’re doing something.’ I believe that while some of the people who are still struggling out there in the real world will be appreciative of some of the measures and will use some of the measures, in the main they will really ask, ‘What is this all about?’

Some work done at Griffith University by a couple of researchers, Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe, has been of interest to me. Late last year, under the Urban Research Program, they put out research paper No. 8, July 2006, entitled Shocking the Suburbs: Urban Location, Housing Debt and Oil Vulnerability in the Australian City. This shows clearly that the regions in major Australian cities that are crying out as a result of increased petrol prices are on the outer urban fringes of the major Australian cities. These areas are characterised by a lesser coverage of efficient mass public transport. They are characterised by great distances between services, which a family has to contend with.

The popular press seems to understand these things. For example, under a headline today in the Melbourne Herald Sun, ‘Luxuries gone as fuel hits’, it says, ‘Petrol soars, pay stays the same’. These are the types of things that are being talked about around the kitchen tables in many family homes throughout Australia. But, on the outer urban fringe, they absolutely know the hardships that these double whammies are causing them. For instance, on Saturday in the Melbourne Age, there is the story of a teacher who lives in an outer urban area in Gisborne, who travels 60 kilometres each day via the suburb of Bundoora, which I represent, to drop her son at school and then on to work in Thornbury. The real problem for this person is that filling the tank costs about $70 a week. This is not discretionary spending; this is necessary spending. I would think that, in this family’s case, living in an area beyond the fringe like Gisborne or on the outer urban fringe is partly for lifestyle but in many cases it is because of economics. It is where the housing that is affordable is located.

You have that contrast where people make decisions to go to areas where the public transport is not as great, on the basis of being able to afford the price of housing. But, when the pressures of increasing interest rates plus increasing fuel prices come to bear, these are difficulties. They are then locked into a cycle where they cannot change jobs because they are uncertain whether, if they change jobs and go to another equivalent job, they can be guaranteed to come to a similar agreement with a prospective employer under the new IR regime of this government. These are real examples. These are not scenarios that we raise just as things that we are conjuring up. They are real, practical things that people have to confront in their day-to-day lives.

That is why for years we have said that there need to be reforms to the petrol retail sector. If you are going to talk about competition, you have to make sure that those who are competing are playing the same sport, under the same rules, and that it is all level pegging. This has been a sector where, for too long, that has not been the case. Why is that so? It is of course because the oil companies—the people who are involved in the refineries—are also involved in retail. They are involved in retail directly. They are involved in retail through some of the franchisee arrangements that happen—but, as I said, many of the pressures that have been placed on franchisees have meant that many people who thought that they could see a working life as a petrol-retailing franchisee have not had the opportunity. That was made a lot different when, as I have said from the outset, the decision was made by Coles and Woolworths to enter petrol retailing.

Hopefully, the principles in this piece of legislation and the Oilcode that flows and the other regulations that will flow from it will in fact produce the level playing field which will not only lead to greater competition—

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