Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Stirling interjects and says, ‘We’re referring to Western Australia.’ Let us talk about Western Australia, because it seems apparent to me that members opposite just do not understand how the scheme works in Western Australia and how Fuelwatch is supposed to work. It is a comprehensive fuel price monitoring and reporting system. It places an obligation on petrol stations to advise consumers about the next day’s fuel prices. It allows the information to be made public—that is, available to consumers—to allow consumers to make an informed purchasing decision about the purchase of their fuel. I am at a loss to understand what it is about that monitoring and reporting service that is so reprehensible to members of the opposition.

It may help members opposite if they go and visit the website that has been made available by the government—www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au—to see how the scheme actually works in Western Australia. As a WA member of this House representing an outer-suburban seat, I can inform the House that many of my constituents regularly utilise the FuelWatch scheme in Western Australia. Ironically it was implemented by the then Liberal state government with bipartisan support in early 2001—an election commitment prior to the February 2001 election. It still receives bipartisan support. It is a popular consumer tool in Western Australia.

Just to give you an indication of how popular it is, not only does the website get over 200,000 hits per month but there are over 30,000 people who subscribe to the email service alerting people to prices and FuelWatch is actually shown during the evening news on the commercial TV stations in Perth. Because it is so popular, the commercial TV stations know that the people who watch their channels are very interested in the information that FuelWatch provides. It allows them to make a better choice about where they purchase their fuel. It allows them to make sure they are not ripped off by local service stations. You can sit there the night before and make a decision about which particular direction or route you are going to take in the morning to go to work so that you can go past the petrol station with the lowest prices that day. Or you can make sure that the direction you take to pick up the kids allows you to go past the petrol station with the lowest prices in your local suburb.

Daily prices of petrol in Perth can fluctuate as much as 15c to 20c per litre, and if motorists can go and shop where they can make savings of that size it is a valuable contribution for them. It creates an opportunity for greater information and greater choice about where a motorist—that is, a consumer—chooses to purchase fuel. It is not guesswork. It is not a matter of hoping, ‘Today I’ll drive past that petrol station and prices will be lower.’ It is published data and, contrary to the rhetoric we have had from members opposite, there is simply no independent advice that has reached a conclusion that FuelWatch increases the price at any end or any time in the fuel cycle. On the contrary, the only thorough examination of the scheme, as members have heard today, was one undertaken by the ACCC. That examination concluded that the government should consider implementing the scheme nationally. (Time expired)

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