Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macarthur for his question. This government understands that fuel prices are a significant cost for many households in Australia. I am pleased report that today the ACCC has delivered its first quarterly petrol monitoring report following a new direction from this government. This is the first report under a new direction that recognises that our government knows that market forces alone are not sufficient in every circumstance to deliver efficient fuel pricing and to make sure that consumers' interests are looked after.

This report reveals great news for motorists, which I thought the whole parliament would have been interested in. The report reveals that petrol prices in our five largest cities decreased by 28c between June and December of last year and that they fell a further 14.6c a litre in January—the lowest price since January 2009. The ACCC found that petrol price reductions in the five largest cities were very much consistent with the fall in international crude oil prices and in the price of refined petrol.

But we also found that in not all cases was that savings being passed through in full and in a timely way to our regional centres. This direction issued by this government enables the ACCC to dive deeply and to have a close examination of what is happening in those markets where we are not seeing full value passed through. ACCC chairman Rod Sims said today that the combined reduction in fuel prices in capital cities of 42.7c a litre 'would be worth $1,000 a year to the average household if sustained'.

The ACCC is doing its job under a new direction from this government. The ACCC is able to do its job because, unlike the previous government, we are giving the ACCC the resources it needs to do its business. What we found under the previous government was that, while they were changing leaders and changing ministers—five in 15 months—the actually forgot to give the resources to the ACCC to do its job properly. With five ministers in 15 months, you can understand why the ACCC—

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