Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Leader of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

All over the country motorists would be denied that opportunity. There is evidence that FuelWatch in WA has given motorists less choice, not more choice. In an all-party report to the Queensland parliament in 2006, it noted that an independent fuel retailer, Matilda Fuel Supplies, urged the committee not to introduce price mechanisms as in Western Australia because it would be, in their words, a disaster for independents. The CEO of the Service Station Association, Ron Bowden, said of service station operators:

If they’re not sure what the market’s going to be tomorrow, they are naturally going to be conservative and make sure that they don’t have to discount any more than they have to. We think this could actually increase average prices rather than lower them.

Paul Stinton, the former owner of a service station at Mt Lawley, told the West Australian:

All my life I’ve been discounting petrol and then all of a sudden FuelWatch appeared and that hurt me so badly it wiped me out. The public don’t realise but the first thing [a national system] would do is to wipe out the independents and take competition out of the market.

To sum up the experience in Western Australia, we find that petrol does not cost less, it costs more. We find that motorists lose out on buying on cheap Tuesdays and have to pay more every other week. We find that independents are priced out of the market and the market becomes less competitive.

Yesterday the Prime Minister was asked by the member for Wentworth whether he was aware of evidence that independents had been disadvantaged by FuelWatch in Western Australia. This was part of his reply. The Prime Minister said:

The key thing is that, when this matter was subjected to analysis by the ACCC, the conclusion was clear that this particular proposal of the government was worthy of implementation.

But let us look at exactly what the ACCC did say in its report on unleaded petrol. It said a number of issues needed to be considered. The ACCC had concerns on the limitations in the analysis already undertaken which might influence the direction of a recommendation. The ACCC was concerned at the effect of a price commitment arrangement on independents. It was concerned as to whether regional and country markets are sufficiently competitive to benefit from increased price transparency. It also expressed the concern that the effect of Fuelwatch on price cycles, and therefore on some consumers’ ability to predict days of the week when prices would be relatively low, would not be enhanced. There was also the issue of dependence on the media to realise the full benefits of the Fuelwatch scheme and it was concerned about the administrative and compliance costs associated with a national scheme. That does not sound like ‘worthy of implementation’ to me. That sounds more like considerable reservations. So when we hear the members opposite say that the ACCC is all for this, the ACCC wants it implemented, they are really gilding the lily.

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