Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

My point is: are those who have been ministers—including the minister who was formerly responsible for Work Choices, ministers responsible for education, ministers responsible for defence, ministers responsible for every portfolio in the government—seriously saying to us that every time the department provided a piece of advice this was therefore their bounden duty, and it would lead to a collapse of the Westminster system if the minister said, ‘Actually, I have a different point of view’?

In fact, the reverse model of government, which those opposite are advancing, is this: the responsibility of ministers is to stand up here simply as the mouthpiece for government departments, simply as the mouthpiece for public servants. This government has a different view: not only do we welcome advice from public servants but we will engage in debate with the Public Service. We will not always agree with the Public Service and, as I have said repeatedly, we will take advice from beyond the Public Service. In terms of the advice that is available to government on this matter, we go back to this weighty tome delivered by the ACCC. The ACCC says, on page 247 of the document:

The main finding from this econometric analysis is that the average of the price margin reduced by a statistically significant amount for Perth relative to the eastern capitals in the time since the introduction of FuelWatch. The relevant weekly average price margin was around 1.9 cpl less on average for the period from January 2001 to June 2007 than for the period from August 1998 to December 2000.

This is econometric analysis provided by the ACCC. The member for Higgins, the former Treasurer, who has not graced the chamber yet, said that this outfit—the ACCC, headed by Graeme Samuel, appointed by the previous government—was in fact the most competent to make analysis on these matters. The former Treasurer, who was adulated yesterday by the current Leader of the Opposition as the bee’s knees of economic policy, stated publicly at the time this report was commissioned that his view was that the ACCC was the most competent body to examine these matters. That is the first proposition. The second proposition is this: this ‘competent body’, so named by the former Treasurer, Mr Costello, produces its report, which contains this econometric analysis and contains that information in the conclusion. Then those opposite are saying: ‘This is the authoritative body. This is the responsible report. Here is the evidence it contains. And you, the government, should ignore it.’

That is essentially the proposition of those opposite. Therefore, the argument in public policy development is: as ministers of the government you are therefore bound and obligated to ensure that you take every single piece of Public Service advice and ignore every other piece of advice which exists and when there is a conflict of advice, say, ‘I have got to stick to what one particular department may say.’

We have a distinctly different view. We welcome the contribution of the Public Service to the debate. The contribution of the Public Service is absolutely critical. What we have said to public servants since forming a government—and we have not changed any departmental heads—is that we do not mind if you contest our views. We welcome a debate; we welcome an argument; we welcome a discussion, in contrast to those opposite who, when they went in, had a quite different view. Remember the debate with Mick Keelty over the question of al-Qaeda and the question about what happened at the train station in Madrid? What did Mr Downer say in response to Mick Keelty when he offered a contrary view to the government? What did he say to him? Downer said, ‘I think that he is just expressing a view that reflects a lot of the propaganda we are getting from al-Qaeda.’ That is the view which you took to your public officials when it came to any public servant who had a contrary view to the policy decisions of the government—in other words, to attack them, to ridicule them and, even worse in this particular statement by the former foreign minister, say that they were acting in cahoots with terrorist organisations.

We have a different view of public policy. We take our advice from the Public Service and from agencies such as the ACCC, which exists within the Treasurer’s portfolio. We take advice from a range of sources and we make a decision. The core argument which has been put forward here is that, because individual government departments had a different view from the decision that was taken by the government, there is something inherently wrong in that as a model for public policy decision making. That of itself is a fraudulent proposition.

That deals with the process matters. If you go to the substance of the matters which are being advanced by those opposite in this debate, it goes down to the question of whether in fact the FuelWatch scheme is capable of providing a useful guide to prices in the future. Again I go back to the substance of the econometric analysis and its conclusion about 1.9c a litre—and that is contained on page 247. Therefore, based on that, we have also had subsequent statements by the chairman of the ACCC who, I am advised, again today on national radio has confirmed that the advice is robust and that it is the econometric analysis which is available, and he is prepared to state his support for FuelWatch on that basis. So you have the competition watchdog up there saying that this is the best thing for motorists. You have the substance of the econometric analysis saying the same thing. On top of that you have a number of motoring organisations across the country saying the same thing. But those opposite are saying that their responsibility is to simply be there at the beck and call of the large oil companies.

Let us go to the second proposition which is contained in the substance of this debate: the impost on business. On the question of the impost on business, which is referred to in one of the other sets of coordination comments referred to in the media today, there is reference to that possible impost on business. There are two points to make about this. Currently, petrol station owners across the country, by virtue of the arrangements which many of them have with the price collection data systems which exist often in conjunction with the larger petrol companies, are themselves often paying fees to that data collection company. That is the first point. There is already, if you like, a compliance cost to those individual service stations operators in terms of their current arrangements.

The second point is this: when the cabinet considered this matter its decision was that businesses would not have a net cost disadvantage to themselves in the implementation of this regime. This is a core element of cabinet’s decision on the day, entirely mindful of the advice which was coming forward about the possible impact on small businesses, entirely mindful of the costs currently being borne by small businesses in the implementation of current arrangements and entirely mindful that government would not allow any of those small businesses and service station operators in any way to be financially penalised by the arrangements which were going to be introduced by the government. That goes to the two core propositions which are being advanced.

Then we come to the other one which is advanced by the opposition, I presume, as its most recent element of policy on this, which is that you can have a notification system but there is no requirement for the price to be held the following day. Has the Leader of the Opposition thought this through? Have you thought through how this would work in practice? You would have a system whereby mum and dad sitting in their house, say, in a suburb in Melbourne, would go onto FuelWatch and see at 8 am on a given morning, when they were about to take off and take the kids to school, that service stations had notified at that particular time of day that their price was X. They jump in the car, drive to the service station and find the price has changed. They have spent 20 minutes driving to the service station thinking that it is a place where they were going to get a cheaper price, and in fact it has changed. That is the model which you have advanced. Have you thought it through in terms of what happens to consumers on the ground? I do not think that the opposition has thought this through at all.

Then you go to the absolute absence of any policy on the part of those opposite. As of yesterday, let us go to the core elements of their position on FuelWatch. You had a WA Liberal senator out there yesterday saying that she thought it was a fantastic thing—and I do not know what you have done with her overnight but I presume that she has been put in the can. Then on top of that you have the position on the part of the member for Wentworth saying that he supports part of our proposition, not all of it. He opposes but is not necessarily not supporting the arrangement. That is his position.

The Leader of the Opposition I notice for the first time today actually said that the Liberal Party is voting against this. Here we are with a policy introduced and made public by the Assistant Treasurer on 15 April and here we are at the end of May and finally we discover the resolve to take a position. You have had no position consistently on FuelWatch and no position consistently on excise, where the shadow Treasurer says that he is not going to implement it anyway when he replaces the Leader of the Opposition in that position. And beyond that again there is a model of Public Service management which says that your job as ministers is to blindly take the advice of any public servant who comes up to you with a piece of advice, as opposed to exercising the discretion which you have as ministers. This government intends to govern differently for Australia’s interests and the interests of motorists. We will stand up for the interests of Australian motorists. We will not stand idly by while those opposite are happy to simply act in the interests of big oil companies. We stand up for the consumer. We stand up for the motorist and we will resolutely maintain our position in support of their interests. (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.

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