Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

And the honourable member for New England, as he always does in these debates, makes a very sensible observation—that is, the availability of LPG. In my electorate, I will be pleased if 383 people take advantage of the government’s initiative. There is no harmonisation and no extra assistance to get the quota up in my electorate, the electorate of Chifley—or in the electorate of New England or in the electorate of Kennedy—if only 200 or 300 people take advantage of it. Those who can afford it can take advantage of it.

But if you are an apprentice and you own a car, because you need it to travel to and from work, but you do not have $2,500—and some say it could be more than that—you will not be able to afford to make the conversion. If you are a single mum who has a car and you want to get back into the workforce and you want to reduce your costs, how will you apply for it with the punitive operation of the taxation and social welfare system that applies to those people who want to re-enter the workforce? You are not going to have a lazy $2,500 or $3,000 lying on the kitchen table that you would be able to grab and take advantage of this initiative. I do not want to quibble about it. We have advocated it—it is in the blueprint—and it is being introduced, but I do not think it goes far enough.

One of the most important things in the amendment moved by the honourable member for Batman relates to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. In his ministerial statement, the Prime Minister said:

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has powers to protect consumers from unlawful, anticompetitive conduct and unlawful market practices through the provisions of the Trade Practices Act. The ACCC monitors the daily average retail prices of unleaded petrol, diesel and automotive LPG at roughly 3,600 sites across Australia.

That is true, but in his statement the Prime Minister does not refer to the question that the shadow Treasurer, the honourable member for Lilley, asked the Treasurer:

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer to the Treasurer’s numerous assurances that the ACCC is constantly monitoring petrol prices to ensure that consumers are not being gouged by oil companies. Treasurer, is it the case that according to a letter from the ACCC Chairman, Graeme Samuel, this price monitoring is limited to collecting incomplete data from oil company websites and filling in the gaps with six-month-old data? Treasurer, do googling and six-month-old data constitute effective monitoring? Will the Treasurer now instruct the ACCC to engage in formal price monitoring to enable them to demand and collect relevant data?

What the member for Lilley was referring to was wholesale prices. We have seen time and time again that the Treasurer answers the question on the basis of retail prices. So no Australian listening to this debate can be reassured that the ACCC is bringing to bear a full amount of authority and undertaking comprehensive price monitoring at a time when petrol prices are hurting Australians. It is something the government has refused to do and slip slides around in implementing. It is also the subject of the amendment moved by the honourable member for Batman. Last week in question time the honourable member for Hunter had a prepared a letter, and all it required was a signature from the Treasurer to implement this wholesale price monitoring. That is all it required.

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