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

I listened to you, as painful as that might be. Mr Ergas said:

I have not come across another instance in Australian public policy since the 1970s where a significant issue such as this has been said to be determined on the basis of modelling and the results of that modelling have not been available to the public.

We also note that the ACCC failed to correct for changes in transport costs over the period. These are likely to have increased prices on the east coast relative to those in Perth. We are surprised that the internal peer review and the peer review by Treasury did not uncover and correct these points.

Given these changes in price structures, we do not see how the ACCC could have objectively concluded that Fuelwatch did not have potential adverse effects, possibly significant for numbers of consumers.

These criticisms are cause for concern. In Senate estimates our good friend Mr Samuel said:

The purpose of the 2007 inquiry was to conduct, as I have described at the time, the most rigorous, the most analytical and the most robust analysis of petrol prices.

Based on the criticism of the econometric analysis of Fuelwatch, there appears to be some significant doubt as to the robustness and the rigour of that modelling. Why did the modelling use a simple average rather than a volumetric average? Why did the modelling ignore transport costs? It is a critical factor in the price of fuel to consumers.

In his introductory letter to the ACCC corporate plan, Mr Samuel stated that ‘the ACCC is guided by five main principles’, one of which is transparency. But there has been no transparency in this process. The ACCC modelling is a black box. This box has been broken open by those such as Professor Harding, Access Economics, Concept Economics and Professor Frank Zumbo. Why did the ACCC go to such lengths to conceal the assumptions which underpin their analysis? What have they got to hide? What happened to the principle of transparency? It is clear for all to see that the position of the ACCC has evolved, as it were, since the report of the inquiry back in December 2007. It would be reasonable to assume that, if the ACCC had failed to recommend Fuelwatch, some new and compelling evidence would have come to light.

In the period since the report was released I have had discussions with Mr Brian Cassidy, who is the CEO of the ACCC. I asked Mr Cassidy, ‘Were the results of analysis done since the report more compelling, less compelling or consistent with the details in the report?’ He replied, ‘They were consistent.’ So we have a report that failed to recommend Fuelwatch, and we have had further work done since the release of the report which is consistent with the work done in that report, but we see a dramatic change in the position of the ACCC. What has caused this dramatic change? What has caused the finding of the ‘Road to Damascus’? Could it be political interference perhaps? One can only speculate. Is it that the hollow men in the back office of Kevin Rudd are alive and well?

In the time I have left I would like to turn my attention to GROCERYchoice where, again, we witness a crisis in confidence with regard to the ACCC. The GROCERYchoice website is supposed to give consumers useful data to inform their purchase decisions, but it is nothing more than high-farce spin and a waste of taxpayers’ money. A report by the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia is damning of the website. The title of the report is most interesting: ACCC’s GROCERYchoice—flawed concept, flawed model, flawed method, flawed conclusions. I think most consumers would agree that that is a perfect summary. NARGA says of GROCERYchoice:

The ACCC GROCERYchoice survey model is irrelevant and deceptive. It provides consumers with not a single useful fact ...

You would get widespread agreement on that. NARGA says:

It is based on dead, month-old data (two months old by the time the following survey is posted on a website) in an industry where tens of thousands of specials change weekly.

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