Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I support the amendment, but I will use this opportunity to raise a number of points in relation to the government’s approach to petrol pricing, particularly its impact on the regions. The amendment is not the problem. In essence, Labor have consistently supported the repeal of the two acts that both the member for Hunter and the member for Batman have referred to, but we have always said that that repeal should be subject to two important conditions. One is the introduction of an oil code. Had that code been introduced in advance of this, these two acts would have been history well before this, because Labor had consistently indicated its support for repeal subject to the introduction of an oil code. The second condition that we have attached to this, which the government acknowledges but again is tardy in acting upon, is reform of section 46 of the Trade Practices Act.

I often hear the Prime Minister say, ‘There’s nothing the government can do about rising oil prices.’ It is true. We are subject through world parity pricing to what happens on the global market, but it is not true to say that the government here is defenceless when it comes to protecting consumers. There are two things the government can do. One is to reform section 46 of the Trade Practices Act, not just recommended by Labor but recommended by the Dawson inquiry, recommended by the Senate and effectively agreed to but not acted upon by the government. If the government is serious about doing something to keep the pressure on competition and therefore downward pressure on prices, it must act. I join with the member for Batman in challenging the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources when he responds to tell us where the legislation is amending section 46, why it has not been brought to us now and when it will be brought, because that was an undertaking given to us and an undertaking that they must discharge if they are to be seen to be credible in moving to put downward pressure on oil prices.

The government must strengthen section 46 of the Trade Practices Act to develop a comprehensive approach to retail pricing and provide greater scope to deal with the abuse of market power. They need to bring in amendments that clarify what sort of behaviour constitutes an abuse of market power and to provide a line in the sand, if you like, to defend small business. We also need to have amendments that will lower the threshold for the ACCC to prove that an abuse of market power has occurred. We want to know where that legislation is. It is an undertaking that the government has made.

The second point where the government can make a difference goes specifically to the question of the differential in prices in the regions. It is very interesting that in the context of petrol prices today—checking the recent data—New South Wales regional towns and centres are paying between 3c and 13c more a litre for their fuel than the capital cities. It is the same story in Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria, and the Northern Territory paid on average $1.48 a litre in September. We all know that people in the bush and in the regions pay more for their petrol. What can be done about it? The government says, ‘Nothing.’ We say they are wrong on that front, and that is why we were successful in having the Senate inquiry, which is currently undertaking its work, look at some options.

One issue is the application of the GST, because in essence it is a tax on a tax. The government claims virtue in freezing the excise on petrol, but what is the advantage—what is the virtue—in freezing the excise if the GST applies as a movable feast on rising retail petrol prices? When this government introduced the GST, it said it would not be introducing a tax on a tax. It has, and it should be looking at that dimension of the problem.

Another aspect that the government could be usefully looking at goes to the question of a replacement for its failed Fuel Sales Grants Scheme. At the time the government introduced that scheme as the compensatory mechanism for the price differential in regional Australia, we said that it would fail. Now they have conceded it. They have run up the white flag but they have put nothing in its place. The minister at the table smiles; he knows we are right. We have proven them to have introduced a failed scheme, but they have not had the wit or wisdom to come up with an alternative.

We hope that, in the submissions and the recommendations that come from the Senate inquiry, maybe something can be looked at, but I pose a suggestion for the minister at the table. We saw the government embrace the notion of targeted tax rebates for low-income workers in the last budget. We have heard the Prime Minister argue that you do not compensate people for fixing the indirect tax mechanism; you compensate them for things like rising petrol prices by doing something through the direct taxation method. Why not review a targeted rebate—for example, the zonal rebate? If the argument is that something is to be done through the direct tax system for people on low incomes, why not recognise the low income in regional Australia—the disadvantage that they are under—and do something about it?

This is a government that has got back revenue of some hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the abolition of the Fuel Sales Grants Scheme. It argues that the money has gone to roads, and it has, but there is no guarantee that it has gone to the roads in the regions. So we have a circumstance in which regional Australians, since the last budget, are paying more for their petrol as a direct action of the government’s abolition of the Fuel Sales Grants Scheme, with no compensation and with no guarantee that the money saved is going to their roads.

This is a government that has sold out regional Australia. The National Party sits by as a paid-up branch office of the Liberal Party, letting them get away with murder. It believes that it can solve its problems by dipping into a honey pot just before every election. Regional Australia deserves better than that. We have forced the inquiry in the Senate on the government. We hope that through that some sensible recommendations come forward that give relief to motorists in regional Australia.

This government has a capacity to act. It has a capacity to introduce the mechanisms under section 46 of the Trade Practices Act—which, if they were in place, would have had a downward pressure on petrol prices. There is no question about that. The government’s failure to act has essentially allowed prices to be higher than they otherwise would have been. The government has failed to compensate regional Australia. We support the amendment but we condemn the government for its failure to act in the interests of motorists in this country, in particular the motorists in regional Australia, who are being slugged yet again for this government’s incompetence.

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