Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That this House censures the Prime Minister for letting down Australians struggling to make ends meet with the high cost of petrol, in particular for:

(1)

supporting a Treasurer who is so obviously out of touch that he declared yesterday ‘Australians are happy with the Budget’ when the pain of rising fuel costs is being felt across the community;

(2)

the Prime Minister’s admission that he has “done as much as we physically can to provide additional help to the family budget” when he refused to address the immediate pressure of fuel costs to the household and business budget;

(3)

the truth, now exposed by one of the Government’s most senior cabinet ministers, that FuelWatch is ‘FoolWatch’ and will kill off competition in the retail fuel sector, will send small business to the wall and will actually increase the cost of fuel;

(4)

mishandling the treatment of fuel and GST matters in the Government’s tax review that exposes its lack of economic experience; but most of all,

(5)

letting down Australians by quitting after less than six months in the job, when what people need most is a Prime Minister who doesn’t give up when the going gets tough and delivers on his promise to bring down the cost of petrol.

Last year, when Leader of the Opposition, the now Prime Minister said a lot of things to Australians and Australians heard a lot. He said that he would deal with interest rate pressures. He said that he would deal with grocery prices. He said that he would deal with the pressure of petrol prices increasing. Australians heard a lot last year. In the six months since there was a change of government in November last year, in the six months since this Prime Minister has been in office, interest rates have increased twice from the Reserve Bank, the banks have increased interest rates again by another 40 to 50 basis points, in many parts of this country house prices have fallen, business and consumer confidence has been shattered and reached record lows, new building approvals have flatlined, retail sales have softened and petrol today is on average more than 17c per litre more than it was at the time of the election and in rural Australia is more than 18c per litre more than it was in November last year.

The Prime Minister has misled the Australian people. He has falsely led Australians to believe, as he ran around Australia as a cross between Crusader Rabbit and some South Park character trying to convince Australians that he would be able to deal with petrol prices, that he would relieve the pressure on Australian families, that he would be able to do something about interest rates to allow Australians to keep their homes, that he would be able to do something about putting groceries in their shopping trolleys and that he would be able to do something about petrol prices and the pressure on not only Australian families but pensioners and carers and retirees and men and women who do not have a family and are not raising children—they are important too, Prime Minister. He led those people to believe that he would be able to deal with those issues. He led them to believe that, if they changed the government and put him into office, into the Lodge with all the trappings that he has become so accustomed to so quickly, in some way their cost-of-living pressures would be eased.

Then last week in Adelaide we had the Adelaide declaration. In a rare moment of honesty, the Prime Minister said, ‘We have done all we physically can do to help and provide additional support to the family budget.’ In other words, what he has done is drawn a line under Australians and those Australian working families and pensioners and retirees and small business men and women and people in rural and regional Australia and he has said, ‘There is nothing more I can do.’ He has put up the white flag. I say, Prime Minister, that if you cannot do any more for Australians, if you cannot do any more for families that are struggling and buckling under petrol prices, then get out of the way and give the job to somebody who can.

We then have the Treasurer of the country, that nervous man who is trying to fill the huge shoes of the straight-A student, the member for Higgins. You get the impression he is in the backroom trying to read up on it—Economics for Dummies and those sorts of books. He was at the dispatch box yesterday and he said, ‘Mr Speaker, Australians are happy after the budget.’ Well, I have got news for the Treasurer; I have got news for the Prime Minister: Australians are not happy. In fact, they are very unhappy and they are becoming increasingly angry about the arrogance and attitude of a Prime Minister who, after only six months, is out of touch and out of ideas. And what we have had in the six months since he became Prime Minister of Australia is a lot of bread and circuses. We have had a lot of symbolism, some of it supported by many Australians and some of it supported by us. But when it came to the real test of making decisions, of putting together a budget for Australians, the only ray of sunshine in the budget for working Australians, including families, were the tax cuts that came from the member for Higgins—the only thing that actually helped Australians.

Having delivered the last of Peter Costello’s tax cuts, the Prime Minister then says to Australian families, ‘We’ve done everything we physically can to provide additional help to Australians’—in other words: ‘Get out of my way. I want to get into my long white car and I want to have these people look after me, because as the Prime Minister there is nothing more I can do.’ I say there is a lot more that can be done.

If we look at petrol, what we had from the government was the announcement of this so-called Fuelwatch. I say to the Prime Minister: how does watching the price of petrol bring it down? This Fuelwatch system, we have been told by a number of motoring organisations, amongst others, is not actually going to bring down the price of fuel. I might add that the RACV’s motto is in fact ‘We’re there for you’. So, if you are a Victorian and you want someone who is there for you, forget the Prime Minister. He has already said: ‘No, I’ve done as much as I can. You Australians move on; get out of my way.’ In contrast, the RACV, which looks after the interests of motorists in the state of Victoria, in a letter to me from its president on 22 May, said in part: ‘We believe Melbourne motorists would be denied access to weekly discounted fuel as a result of Fuelwatch.’ It goes on: ‘Fuelwatch may put the future of independent operators in jeopardy if they’re unable to move their prices for 24 hours in order to compete with major retailers. These statistics clearly show that motorists take advantage of cheaper days of the week, especially the day when the cheapest price usually applies, which is on a Tuesday.’ Of course, the Prime Minister may not have a high regard for the RACV. We do. We on this side have a very high regard for the RACV.

So, if the Prime Minister is not going to listen to Australians—and I will get to that in a minute—and he is not going to listen to the RACV, who might he listen to? Would he listen to a former ACTU president? I reckon he might. Would he listen to a senior cabinet minister? I reckon he might. But today, in the Australian newspaper, we read that the Minister for Resources and Energy wrote to his own government and said that with the introduction of Fuelwatch:

The biggest losers ... would again be working families in places like western Sydney …

The resources minister in the Prime Minister’s own government wrote to him and said that the Fuelwatch scheme would be:

… an anti-competitive waste of money and predicted it would leave battlers out of pocket, despite government claims it would lead to lower fuel prices.

In other words, it is a stunt. When he is trying to get into the Lodge, when he is trying to get those trappings—that big house, the white car and everything else—he goes around the country and says to Australians, ‘You put me in there and I’ll fix your petrol prices.’ But when petrol prices start going up, as they have significantly since the change of government, he comes up with Fuelwatch. He says, ‘We’re going to have Fuelwatch.’

I point out to the Prime Minister that today is Tuesday. For those of us who live in the real world, tonight, Tuesday night, in every part of the country except Western Australia there will be queues of motorists up to half a kilometre long outside petrol stations—and you know why they are there, Mr Speaker? They will be there in their 20-year-old Mitsubishis, they will be there in their 10-year-old Commodores with three kids in the back seat and they will be there in their Taragos, with a wheelchair in the back, and five kids because tonight is the night in the cycle when you get the cheapest fuel. I say to the Prime Minister: get out of your car and go down there and ask those families whether they reckon a 5c cut in the excise on petrol might make a difference. I say to the Prime Minister: these are men and women who are making decisions about whether they are going to buy processed sausages or chops, whether they can afford to put $40, $50 or $60 worth of petrol in their car. The last thing they need is a Prime Minister who says, ‘There’s nothing more I can do for you.’

There is something that he can do for them. The first thing he can do is to stop this fraud, Fuelwatch. He can listen to the Minister for Resources and Energy and he can listen to the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy and the Minister for Finance and Deregulation—who happen to be talking to each other about this at the moment—because we know from the media that they think that the Prime Minister has got it wrong and, to quote the resources minister, that the people who will suffer most from what he is proposing to do are those battlers.

These are men and women in their cars—with their kids, who have houses sometimes worth less than they paid for them and who have a mortgage and interest rates increasing under you, Prime Minister, with 134,000 of them budgeted under you to lose their jobs by the end of this year—who are making decisions about whether to buy food or buy more petrol, and the Prime Minister is perpetrating on them a fraud which not only is anticompetitive but actually means that they will pay more. The one question, amongst the many that he would not answer today, was a simple one. It was: ‘Prime Minister, will you guarantee that no Australian will pay one cent more in petrol as a result of the introduction of Fuelwatch?’ He would not answer the question, and he will not answer the question, because the answer is that they will.

The people—like those who populate the front bench of the government—who do not care too much what the price of petrol is when they pull in will pay a few cents a litre less on the cycle on average. But the people who are queued up there tonight will pay more, and they will pay more from budgets that can least afford to pay more. That is what the Prime Minister knows, and that is what he is not prepared to admit. Prime Minister, in that ACCC report you are so fond of quoting just have a look at the comparison between Perth and Adelaide. You will notice, if you look at it, that there is almost twice as much fuel sold on a Tuesday as on a Thursday in Adelaide, because Australians are watching the price of petrol. But in Perth it is pretty much the same every day, and the petrol is dearer. Petrol is, on average at the moment in Perth, $1.54 a litre. It is more than in every other capital city in the country.

So what we have is a stunt. We have a stunt which is intended to distract people. Then, when that is exposed, the next thing we get is that he is a quitter. He has given up on Australian families. He says that he has done everything he physically can after six months. This must be the first government that has ended its honeymoon with its own budget and with an admission from the Prime Minister that he cannot do anymore.

The other thing that is very important is that, if the Prime Minister really wants to do something about petrol, there is 38c a litre of excise on petrol. There is just under 14c a litre in GST. Then what do we have? We have the stunt, we have the white flag and then we have the media spin. I suspect, by the way, that tomorrow we will have a story about the campaign against obesity or something on breastfeeding—all worthy causes. What does his media department do? His media department says, ‘I know: let’s have a look at the GST on the excise.’ So what we now have is a plan to have a review which might take almost 4c a litre off petrol when the review reports in 18 months, and we have already had the state governments saying, ‘Well, we can’t have this.’

Prime Minister, if you will not go down to one of those queues tonight, Tuesday night, and ask those motorists, firstly, if they would support a 5c cut in the excise on fuel and then, secondly, if they think it is a good idea to have an inquiry that will report in 18 months and might take 4c a litre off the price of petrol—if you will not go down there and ask them—we will send Cardboard Kev! They will get more sense out of him than out of you!

This country is in a strong budgetary position. It is so because, over 11½ years, that man there, the member for Higgins, made tough decisions. He made decisions—along with the then government—to get this country into a strong position where surplus budgeting is the norm, where unemployment was going down, where interest rates were going down and where tax cuts were delivered in almost every budget that was delivered. I say to the Prime Minister—through you, Mr Speaker—that Australians are at breaking point. Petrol is $1.60 a litre and rising. There is one thing the Prime Minister can do—one thing that he has control over. He has 38c a litre of excise, money collected from those same families that are there tonight, in some cases going without the most essential basics to put petrol in their cars. The Prime Minister can make a decision to reorder his priorities and give them some relief.

Everybody knows that the coalition stands for lower taxes and for a cut in the excise of 5c a litre. We must make it clear to you, Prime Minister, that Australians need decisions, they need leadership and they need relief. They do not need another committee. They do not need an inquiry. They do not need a summit. They do not need something that is going to report in 18 months and that might give them less than 4c a litre. Australian families, Australian pensioners and Australian seniors have to eat. Ninety per cent of households have a car, and they need to put petrol in it. They know—Australians know; we all know—that, of course, there are global issues affecting the price of petrol, but they know that the one thing the Prime Minister can control is the excise on petrol. The Prime Minister needs to show leadership, to be decisive, to give Australians relief, to support a 5c a litre cut in the fuel excise and not to give them another committee to eat or to put in their fuel tank. We censure the Prime Minister of Australia because he has given up on Australians.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Is the motion seconded?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

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

I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“this House supports the Government’s creation of a National FuelWatch Scheme as announced by the Government on 15 April 2008 and foreshadowed in the report of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) into the price of unleaded petrol in December 2007, with the following characteristics:

(1)

under the National FuelWatch Scheme, petrol stations in metropolitan and major regional centres will be required to:

(a)

notify the ACCC of their next day’s prices by 2 p.m. the day before;

(b)

maintain this advised price for a 24 hour period; and

(c)

apply the scheme to unleaded petrol, premium unleaded petrol, LPG, diesel, 98 RON and biodiesel blends;

(2)

the extension of this scheme outside of metropolitan areas and major regional centres will be subject to negotiation between the ACCC and local Government authorities in rural areas. Rural local authorities will be able to opt in to the National FuelWatch Scheme—as they can under the WA FuelWatch model; and

(3)

the petrol price information collected from these petrol stations will be made available to consumers through:

(a)

an email and SMS alert service informing subscribed consumers details of the cheapest fuel in their area;

(b)

a national toll free number where motorists can locate the cheapest petrol in the area they are looking to purchase fuel; and

(c)

a National FuelWatch website with station by station, day by day and suburb by suburb petrol price information; and

further, that this House supports FuelWatch as the most effective tool to empower motorists with their fuel purchasing decisions, leading to real benefits for motorists including:

(1)

the ability for motorists under a National FuelWatch Scheme to find and access with certainty the cheapest petrol prices;

(2)

the downward pressure in prices as a result of introducing FuelWatch with an independent analysis conducted by the ACCC concluding that petrol prices were on average 1.9 cents per litre less under Western Australia’s FuelWatch Scheme;

(3)

the convenience of motorists being able to find the cheapest petrol via the FuelWatch website, or by SMS or email alerts; and

(4)

addressing the information imbalance in the retail petrol market as outlined by the ACCC’s Petrol Pricing Report, a report and inquiry commissioned by the previous government”.

The purpose of the amendment is pretty straightforward. It is to get those opposite to finally put their money where their mouths are. We have been having this debate since 15 April, and every time those opposite have been asked this question—are you going to go for it or are you against it—they go to water. They went to water on it again this morning. It is time for them to put their money where their mouths are, because in a few minutes time they will be required to vote on this amendment in order to nail to the mast once and forever their opposition to this proposed national Fuelwatch scheme. When they do so, and that action is followed in the substantive vote on the substantive legislation in the House of Representatives and followed in the Senate, where they have the numbers to defeat this legislation to bring in this national Fuelwatch scheme, the whole country will know where they stand—that is, opposed to this scheme. At present, the classic politics of those opposite is to carp about the edges, but on the substantive question of whether they are going to vote for it or against it they are hiding in the trenches and ducking for cover.

We are not going to allow them that opportunity anymore. When this amendment comes to a vote very soon in the House of Representatives, they will be required, on the question of a Fuelwatch scheme, based on the previous government’s own commission of inquiry by the ACCC—a scheme which could bring about on average a 2c per litre reduction at the bowser—to stand unequivocally in the parliament and say, ‘We’re not going to give the Australian people that scheme.’ They will stand and vote in this parliament and say unequivocally that when petrol stations in a single metro area vary their prices between 15c and 20c across the metro area on a given day they stand for a proposal that says, ‘We’re not going to give consumers that information.’ They will, through their vote, tell the Australian people that they do not stand for—in fact they oppose—providing consumers with this kind of basic consumer information. And they will be standing up there and saying all the consumer power, all the market power, should lie with the petrol majors and with the petrol retail outlets and not be given to consumers. That is the clear-cut alternative that we face in this debate before us, and that is why the amendment to the censure motion is as explicit as it is.

What we are putting to those opposite today is a very clear-cut position: nail your colours to the mast, tell us whether you are for or against this, because, on everything else we have heard from you up until now, your preferred position is to sit on the middle of a barbed wire fence. They do not know whether they are for inflation or against inflation. They do not know whether there is an economic case for government expenditure cuts or not. They have said they do not know whether they support means-testing of welfare payments or not. They are not sure where they stand ultimately on the question of their own fuel excise proposal. Where their entire argument on this collapses—I listened very carefully to what the Leader of the Opposition said on this—is where he said that their position was clear. If it is so clear, why does the alternative Treasurer of Australia not stand up and say at the dispatch box that when he replaces the Leader of the Opposition as the leader of the Liberal Party it will be their policy come the next election? This fraudulent debate engaged in by those opposite falls apart at the seams because the alternative Treasurer of Australia—the person who conspires day in, day out to replace the Leader of the Opposition—when asked point-blank at the National Press Club whether this would be Liberal Party policy at the next election, said, ‘I cannot give that commitment.’ That is how robust the position of those opposite is.

It is not just the member for Wentworth. The email trail, and those associated with it, cries out to various journalistic contacts to make sure that their name is not associated with the 5c a litre proposal. It is led by the member for Higgins, who has now escaped from the chamber to do some more plotting, and endorsed by the member for Mayo, so I understand it—that is, he does not support it because it would trash the economic credibility of those opposite. Then we have the position of the member for Flinders, who seems to have fled from the chamber as well. He did not want to miss out in the rush to disassociate himself from the position formally adopted by the Leader of the Opposition. If this is going to be a fair dinkum debate, the proposal on the table from us is: here is a national Fuelwatch scheme—not a silver bullet but a way ahead. We have had a debate about it and we have agreed on a policy position.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not all of you!

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

It is a very interesting interjection about not all of us, because I could say one thing when it comes to a comparison of Martin and Malcolm. First of all, Martin is not on the hunt for my job; Malcolm is certainly on the hunt for your job.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The House will come to order.

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

And I do not see any dissension on the part of the member for Wentworth on that proposition. I do not see the member for Wentworth taking a point of order. I do not see him rising to the dispatch box. I do not see him crying out saying, ‘I have been misrepresented.’ No, because it would be such a huge gap between that and the reality which we all know around this place, which is that the member for Wentworth is day in, day out out there undermining the Leader of the Opposition, but most pertinently in this debate in the chamber saying that this policy on which the Leader of the Opposition stakes so much is not one which he can guarantee that the Liberal Party will take to the next election. The whole premise of the debate is fraudulently undermined by the member for Wentworth’s position undertaken publicly. Then we had the carping from those opposite.

More broadly, this is about the question of economic responsibility. On the question of economic responsibility, we heard the Leader of the Opposition utter immortal words barely 15 minutes ago when he said that when they left office interest rates were coming down—not going up; they were going down. As I understand it, back at the time when they gave this terribly responsible commitment to the Australian people that interest rates would be kept at record lows, that was not entirely capable of being honoured by those opposite. In fact, they knew when they gave that undertaking that it was a fraudulent undertaking, but they did it in order to secure votes from the Australian people. But we have, as the ultimate indictment of the Leader of the Opposition’s lack of any form of credibility, him standing in this parliament in this debate, a formal censure of the Prime Minister of the country, and saying that when they left office interest rates were coming down. Leader of the Opposition, I do not know where you are getting your economic advice from. I suggest you get some new advice, because anyone would tell you—

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He’s getting it from Malcolm.

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

If you are getting your advice from Malcolm, I would think long and hard about it. It may have a different problem attached to it.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will refer to members by their titles.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mrs Mirabella interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would remind the member for Indi of her status in the House.

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

Then on the absolute question of where we stood on 24 November, the fairytale being woven by those opposite, their Alice in Wonderland tour of the economic reality of the country, is this. On 25 November inflation became a problem. On 25 November, at least until this most recent intervention, which was remarkable, interest rates became a problem. We have now been blamed for interest rates in the last six months as well by them. Of course, on 25 November suddenly petrol prices became a problem and grocery prices became a problem and I presume everything else suddenly became a problem. The delivery of services to schools, and hospitals all became a problem. The unavailability of broadband services in the bush became a problem. So the underlying realities of this country suddenly went whoosh on 25 November—all changed. In 12 years it did not happen, not one bit.

I do not think the Australian people believe you. They have looked long and hard at the government as it was leading up to the election of last November and said, ‘You know, this mob have had a long time to prove whether they are fair dinkum; a long time to prove they are fair dinkum on dealing with the impact of inflation on interest rates; a long time to deal with the problem of the skills crisis which fuelled inflationary pressures in the economy—20 warnings from the Reserve Bank on that and infrastructure; 12 years to act on the infrastructure bottlenecks of the nation, and they failed to act; 12 years to act on the crisis in our hospitals, and instead they pulled out $1 billion; 12 years to act on our school system, and instead they simply said, ‘Blame the states;’ 12 years to act on climate change, and they said, ‘Find me a hole in which to bury my head and I will bury it there and bury it very deeply.’ That is the rationale of those opposite, that the entire universe changed on 25 November 2007 and none of these realities existed before. I say again that I do not think anyone out there believes the position being put forward by those opposite.

We have a view that when it comes to the challenges faced by working Australians, working families and those doing it tough, you have to deal with it at multiple levels. You have to deal with the system of tax we have in the country. Another bogus claim by the Leader of the Opposition is on the tax package. What did they stand for? An extra $3 billion or $4 billion to be delivered to people earning north of $180,000—that was their position going to the last election. What did we do by contrast? We took that money and we said: we are going to give it back to working families who are dealing with the cost of funding their kids’ education in schools, both government and non-government, through, for the first time in the nation’s history, an education tax refund—$4.4 billion into the pockets of working Australians out of the pockets of those who earn north of $180,000. And they say there was no contrast in the tax positions the parties took to the last election. If you think $4.4 billion is irrelevant to the daily budgets of working families across the country struggling with the cost of educating their kids, I think you are on a different plane of reality.

When it comes to the family budget, it is tax that counts, it is the education tax refund that counts, it is the childcare tax rebate that counts, it is the measures being promoted by the Minister for Housing to deal with housing affordability and also the measures that we have announced in terms of the Medicare levy surcharge that count. The assumption by those opposite that those on $50,000 a year are somehow wealthy and should have this impost on them is extraordinary and demonstrates of itself how out of touch they are. When you put all those measures together, none of them represents a silver bullet. But, if you have got money coming in from the tax cut; money coming in from the childcare tax rebate going from 30 per cent to 50 per cent; for the first time, the education tax refund; and, if you are in the $50,000 to $100,000 bracket, the additional benefit which flows from the change to the Medicare levy surcharge, these things add up in providing some additional practical help and they help deal with some of those pressures that families are under. What is the alternative? A 5c change in the excise, which even the alternative Treasurer and alternative Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth, does not support. That is the alternative. So we have an approach which says, ‘Here is tax, here is the childcare tax rebate, here is the education tax refund, here is housing affordability, here is what we are doing on the surcharge imposed on those people’—each of these delivering something by way of support to working families, and you say, ‘Here is our policy: 5c on excise,’ which the gentleman behind you does not support but has in fact used as a tool to undermine you.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Prime Minister will refer his remarks through the chair.

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

The censure is rejected. The amendment should be supported and we wait with interest to see how those opposite choose to vote.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good every day to have another example of the shamelessness of this Prime Minister. We have been treated to speaker after speaker citing the report of the ACCC. Here it is. This is the one belonging to the Assistant Treasurer, which he tabled—barely read, pages unmarked. There is only one member of the frontbench who has read this document, and that is the member for Batman. He is the only one who has read it. What did this Prime Minister—this lightweight, this nonreader—say yesterday about it? He 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.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth of the matter is that the ACCC said a great deal more work needs to be done. The ACCC expressly rejected it and said:

... the ACCC decided ... it was not possible to fully review all the options with regard to their administrative implications, effects on competition or their likelihood of delivering the objective of increased price transparency. A detailed assessment addressing these issues would have to be made before government could confidently embark on any one of the suggested options.

This report does not recommend Fuelwatch; it quite expressly does not recommend it. In answer to a question from the member for Riverina, the Prime Minister had the gall, the shamelessness, to say that Fuelwatch would benefit motorists in regional and rural areas. Let us have a look at what the ACCC actually says:

A potential concern is that in less competitive markets—

this is under the heading of ‘Effects on regional and country areas’—

a FuelWatch type of scheme could lead to higher prices through anti-competitive effects. As a result further analysis of the effect of the WA FuelWatch scheme on regional and country areas is warranted.

This document has been read by only one member of the government—the Minister for Resources and Energy, the member for Batman. He read it very carefully and he knew, from all the information he and his expert department had, that the evidence was that Fuelwatch would push prices up, it would reduce competition and that there was no case made for introducing Fuelwatch—not even a case made by the ACCC. I look at the Assistant Treasurer opposite and I think to myself, ‘What a lightweight.’ He stands up and tenders this document in support of a proposition this report actually opposes. The report does not recommend Fuelwatch; it says: ‘You’ve got to do lot more work. Have another look at it.’

Then, of course, we turn to the Treasurer. The Prime Minister’s devotion to China and his fluency in Mandarin is much admired. But what puzzled us yesterday was a disturbing interest that the Treasurer appears to have in the North Korean Juchi culture. I have never heard a leader in government, other than Kim Jong Il, say so confidently, ‘The people are happy.’ He had the glasses; all he needed was a boiler suit and a bouffant hairdo and it would have been him standing at the dispatch box! What is going on? It is all very well embracing our neighbours in the region, but, really, should we begin with North Korea? It is very, very troubling.

The fact is that we have had from the member for Batman, the minister for energy, a very cogent analysis of what is wrong with this plan—that is the truth. What he has said, very simply, is that if you try to control prices in this way all you will do is eliminate competition and prices will go up. He said that the people who are most price sensitive, plainly those on lower incomes, will suffer the most, because they will not be able to have access to the lowest price. And in a very deliberate jibe at the member for Prospect, the Assistant Treasurer, he cited working families in Western Sydney. This was a minister who was furious that the interests of the people he had dedicated his life to—Australian working families—were being betrayed by a government devoted to spin, a government that is only focused on having a story to tell: ‘It doesn’t matter who is in favour of it, it doesn’t matter what the arguments are, as lang as it gives us something to say.’

The Assistant Treasurer received a letter some time ago from the Leader of the Opposition asking him for some assurances about Fuelwatch. The Assistant Treasurer replied on 16 April. This is what he wrote:

There is simply no independent analysis that has reached the conclusion that there is any upward pressure on petrol prices through FuelWatch.

This was two days after he had received very detailed, considered analysis from the minister for energy—a minister senior to him, a cabinet minister. This is the contempt the Assistant Treasurer holds his colleagues in. He dismisses them. ‘The member for Batman doesn’t know what he’s talking about; he can be dismissed.’

The truth is that consistently there have been serious reservations expressed about Fuelwatch. If we go back to Alan Fels when he was ACCC chairman, he noted back in 2003, in a report into fuel-pricing arrangements in Western Australia, that the 24-hour rule, where prices have to be nominated the day before and cannot be changed during the course of the following day, is:

... likely to have reduced rather than increased competition because it adversely affected independent operators.

Three years later, Professor Fels’s successor, Graeme Samuel, expressed the same concerns. He gave evidence before the Senate Economics Legislation Committee and said, on 3 August 2006:

... we have concern that that 24-hour notification can have a negative impact on competition.

At the same hearings on the same day, Brian Cassidy, the chief executive of the ACCC, said:

... we did have some concern that the 24-hour notification may well have acted to impede the ability of the independent chains to decide to discount, which they often do at fairly short notice, depending on where the market is, because they are required to actually give the 24 hours’ notice before they change their price.

That was the position of the ACCC right up to 3 August 2006. Then, in their most recent report in December, as I said at the outset of my remarks, what we have is no recommendation for Fuelwatch—none at all. It is a recognition that the analysis of it is very preliminary; there are enormous questions about it, its impact on independent retailers, its potential for anticompetitive effects in rural and regional areas and the potential for a reduction in the predictability of price cycles for consumers. This means, of course, the ability of those consumers who are focused on getting that lowest price: the price-sensitive consumers, the battlers in Western Sydney that the member for Batman was so concerned with and that the member for Prospect represents but is not concerned with. The ACCC recognised that concern and said that was another big question. They also identified the considerable administrative costs both on the government and for compliance.

We turn to another recent considered analysis. The Queensland government in August 2005 investigated petrol pricing in Queensland. The committee was chaired by none other than Queensland’s current Treasurer, Andrew Fraser, and it released its report in April 2006. This report examined Western Australia’s FuelWatch scheme and this is what recommendation 12 of the report said:

That the Minister for Fair Trading not introduce legislation to control petrol prices in Queensland based on the Petroleum Products Pricing ACT 1983 (WA).

The Queensland government responded two months later and the then Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Anna Bligh, now Premier, agreed with it. This is what she said:

The ACCC has investigated Western Australia’s 24 hour price fixing rule and found that average fuel prices would generally not be lower under the scheme. Furthermore, the model is very costly to establish and operate, with no tangible benefit to the community.

We have been told one falsehood after another about Fuelwatch by this government. We were told the ACCC recommended the implementation of this scheme, when in fact it is obvious that the ACCC has done no such thing. The document speaks for itself but it only speaks—and I focus my attention on the Assistant Treasurer, whose copy this is—to those who take the time to read it. We have seen a report from the Queensland government carefully analysing it and concluding that it would put upward pressure, not downward pressure, on prices. And of course we look at what the situation is today. We look at the website www.motormouth.com.au. In Perth today, the average unleaded petrol price is $1.54, higher than the average prices elsewhere in the country.

Really, that is what this all boils down to. This is a government that is determined to manipulate and constrain the market and that has no faith in competition. They say they are economic conservatives. This is old-style socialism; this is old-style nanny state. This is a Prime Minister who said in his remarks earlier in question time how horrible it was to have fluctuations in the price of petrol in the course of one day. So we cannot have price fluctuations in the course of one day. What is going to be next? Will fruit and vegetable prices be fixed a day in advance? What about real estate prices? What about shares on the stock market? What are we going to do? We want to be a financial centre in Australia but, no, we will have prices fixed the day before. We are going back decades and decades.

This is extraordinary. It is an assault on competition, an assault on free enterprise, an assault on the market, and, as always, when the market is assaulted the people that suffer the most are those that are seeking the keenest price. We in the Liberal Party stand for enterprise. We stand for competition. We believe in free markets. We know that the way consumers get the best price is through effective competition, a free market and ensuring there is a competitive petrol market—which there is. We are very happy to have prices disclosed on the internet through websites. That is all good; more transparency is fine. But fixing the prices is a way of controlling those prices and keeping them up. All that the government will do, for the sake of a headline, is undermine the position and living standards of the working families it so hypocritically claims to represent.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It took an election defeat, but at last we hear from the Liberal Party about cost-of-living issues for Australian families. At last we hear from the party of Work Choices, the party that introduced a law which put downward pressure on Australian wages, about the cost-of-living pressures on Australian families. In his address for election to the leadership of the Liberal Party which we just heard, the putative Leader of the Opposition at last makes reference to Australian working families. This is a man who not long ago, when he walked through the House of Representatives entrance to this Parliament House, said that a 25 basis point rise in interest rates was overdramatised. The alternative Treasurer of this country said, ‘All this talk about interest rates is overdramatised.’ Now we have crocodile tears from the member for Wentworth—who dares to lecture us on working families in Western Sydney and dares to come in here and lecture us about the cost-of-living pressures on Australian people.

Those opposite are from the party that just 150 days ago believed that Australian working families had never been better off. They are the party led by the man who just five minutes ago said interest rates were coming down under the previous government. How out of touch can you get? It is a race to be more out of touch between the member for Wentworth and the Leader of the Opposition. They are the party which care so little about working families that they are prepared to raid the surplus to put upward pressure on interest rates. They are prepared to raid the surplus that has been built by the Australian government to put downward pressure on Australian interest rates. They are the party led by the man who just a few weeks ago said inflation—and, therefore, cost-of-living pressures—was a charade. And today we see crocodile tears from them.

Today, in a few minutes time, the opposition can decide whose side they are on. Are they on the side of Australian motorists? Do they agree with the leader of the Liberal Party in New South Wales, who said that Fuelwatch:

... will ease the burden on families and pensioners by helping drive down petrol prices. This is about putting the interests of motorists’ wallets ahead of company profits.

Do they agree with their colleagues in Western Australia? Does the Deputy Leader of the Opposition—a Western Australian Liberal, who presumably has been a delegate to Western Australian state conferences which have endorsed the FuelWatch policy—agree with her state colleagues? Would she agree if she became leader of the Western Australian Liberal Party, for example? Would the member for North Sydney agree with his state colleagues if he became leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party? I am just plucking a title out of the air. This is the time for the Liberal Party to choose. Do they agree with their state colleagues? Are they on the side of motorists or are they on the side of those with vested interests?

We all know their 5c per litre plan will not happen. The shadow Treasurer knows it. The Prime Minister invited him to confirm that it would be his policy at the next election should he lead the Liberal Party at the next election. He declined to take up that challenge. They are entitled to a fantasy. I do not begrudge them their fantasy, but, while they engage in their fantasy, let us get on with our practical plan, our modest but sensible measure, to put downward pressure on petrol prices. We all know their plan cannot be delivered. The shadow Treasurer knows it, the member for Higgins knows it and the member for Mayo knows it. We do not have much truck on this side of the House with the member for Higgins or the member for Mayo. We do not always see eye to eye but we do recognise they are experienced. We do recognise they are realists. They know what can be delivered and they know that this plan of the Leader of the Opposition is a fantasy. While you engage in your fantasy, do not stand in the way of our plan. Do not stand in the way of our plan to help Australian motorists. Do not stand in the way of our plan to help motorists find cheaper petrol, petrol which can be 30c a litre cheaper in any given city on any given day. Do not stand in the way in this House in a few minutes time and do not stand in the way in the other place when the legislation is introduced.

We heard during question time about what the Liberal Party seem to support. They seem to support the situation which the ACCC described as being conducive to anticompetitive coordination. Tell us where you stand when the ACCC says the direct exchange of price information between suppliers is conducive to anticompetitive coordination. Tell us where you stand on the ACCC’s view that the circulation of price data on a very frequent or near real-time basis raises the concern that it could be promoting anticompetitive behaviour amongst refiner markets and supermarket chains in the retail market. Tell us where you stand on the one-way street that is petrol pricing in this country at the moment. Tell us where you stand on the issue of Australian motorists getting real-time information about petrol prices and knowing with certainty that, when they go to a service station, the price that was advertised will be the price when they get there. Tell us where you stand on information about the spikes in petrol prices in the lead-up to weekends and long weekends.

If those members opposite stand in the way of this legislation then every time there is a big increase in petrol prices, before a weekend or before a long weekend, and every time I receive an email from a motorist—and I get hundreds a week—saying, ‘What can you do to help us deal with these big price rises just before the weekend?’ I will respond by saying, ‘I have forwarded your email to the member for Bradfield, because he is the man standing in the way of Fuelwatch. He is the man who has stopped a scheme which could give you information, in advance, saying: petrol prices are going up tomorrow; you had better buy today. He is the man standing in the way of the chairman of the ACCC.’

We heard a lot from the shadow Treasurer about this socialist scheme from that well-known socialist Graeme Samuel. The shadow Treasurer is the man standing in the way of this scheme supported by the ACCC and the Petrol Commissioner. We know those opposite do not support the Petrol Commissioner. We do not know whether they would keep the Petrol Commissioner if they were elected at the next election, but we know they never got around to appointing a Petrol Commissioner. We know they do not support the Petrol Commissioner, but, while he is there, why don’t we put in place a plan which he says he needs to do his job? Why don’t we give the Petrol Commissioner a scheme he says will help Australian motorists?

We have heard a lot of rhetoric from the opposition about petrol prices under Fuelwatch. They pluck out figures; they pluck out certain days of the week. What they will not tell you is this: the analysis is that in every year—2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007—average petrol prices in Perth have been lower than in every other capital city. And what they also will not tell you is this: fuel standards in Perth are higher than in the rest of the country. They have higher environmental standards, which makes their fuel more expensive and yet it is still cheaper under FuelWatch than in other capital cities, except of course Brisbane, with the subsidy.

What we hear from the opposition is half-truths and misleading statements. Let’s not have this rhetoric from the opposition about fuel prices in different parts of the country. If they bother to read the ACCC report they will have the evidence before them. When they have their briefing tomorrow from that well-known socialist, the chairman of the ACCC, and he explains to them what work the ACCC has been doing with the government on developing the proposals in the ACCC’s report, and when the Petrol Commissioner explains to them why the Petrol Commissioner views this scheme as being vital to delivering more information and transparency to Australian working families, they might then reconsider their position. They might then reconsider their position and give Australian families a fair go. They might say: ‘Fair enough. We will give motorists the opportunity to find that cheaper petrol. We will give motorists the opportunity to log on to the ACCC’s website, the Fuelwatch website, and put in their route between home and work and find the cheapest petrol along the way.’ They might even support business in Australia.

We have heard a lot from the opposition about how cheaper fuel prices lead in to inflation and lead in to cheaper grocery prices. Imagine if a major transport company delivering goods in trucks across the country could have an employee log on to the Fuelwatch website and say to their hundreds of drivers spread across the country, ‘Here is the cheapest petrol you can buy,’ and it might be 20c or 30c or 10c a litre cheaper than the average. Can you imagine the savings for a large business in this country? Those are savings that members opposite appear certain to block. We heard the putative Leader of the Opposition this morning saying, ‘We oppose Fuelwatch but we are not sure how we will vote.’ It rang of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: ‘We neither support nor oppose.’ We have been here before. Soon we will know. In five minutes time we will know where they stand.

Do you stand with motorists or do you stand against motorists? Do you stand for more transparency or do you stand against transparency? Do you stand for more information or do you stand against more information? These are the essential points. While you are engaging in your fantasy of reducing the excise on petrol, let us get on with our practical plan—a practical plan that will introduce more transparency and competition into the Australian petrol market, a practical plan which builds on the work done by the Petrol Commissioner and the increased powers for the ACCC, a practical plan which builds on the election commitment made by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to introduce more transparency and competition into the Australian petrol market. This is what we promised to do at the election.

We have heard a lot of verballing from the opposition about what we actually promised. They allege that we promised we would solve all the world’s problems. Of course, unlike them in 2004, we levelled with the Australian people and said, ‘This will not be easy.’ We levelled with the Australian people and said, ‘There are no magic bullets.’ We levelled with the Australian people and said, ‘We can’t guarantee that grocery or petrol prices will come down, but we will do everything we can to put downward pressure on them by introducing more competition.’ Those opposite cannot deny it, because the member for Higgins pointed it out at the time. The member for Higgins raced out and held a press conference after the then shadow Treasurer was asked by Laurie Oakes on the Sunday program:

Can you guarantee if you win government petrol prices will fall?

The then shadow Treasurer said:

No, I can’t guarantee that, but I can guarantee that we will do the maximum amount possible to make sure that people aren’t being ripped off.

That is what the now Treasurer said—unlike you. The former Treasurer, our old friend up in by-election alley, the member for Higgins, raced out to hold a press conference and said:

Here is the Labor stunt machine at work ... They want to pretend they are doing something on petrol—you ask them does it mean petrol prices will fall, no.

So they knew what we were committing to. We were committing to increased transparency and competition to put downward pressure on petrol prices. They knew it then and they know it now and they are trying to fit us up for being as silly and as dishonest as they were when they promised to keep interest rates at record lows. We have a different approach. We have the approach of being honest with the Australian people and saying that, when world oil prices are so high, it is incumbent on the Australian government to actually do something to ensure more competition and transparency in the Australian petrol market—something they failed to do.

Their official policy was the shoulder shrug: ‘Nothing we can do.’ That is their official policy in government. It was: ‘Australian working families have never been better off; therefore, there is nothing we can or should do.’ We have a different approach. We have the approach that we can, through a range of modest measures, put downward pressure on petrol prices. We have the view that we can give consumers more information and get rid of a system which the consumer watchdog, the people charged to independently stand up on behalf of consumers in this country, say is conducive to anticompetitive coordination. We say that is not acceptable. We say that is not good enough.

They were always soft on competition on the other side. They were soft on cartels; they never criminalised cartels—we are doing it. They were soft on the Trade Practices Act and soft on predatory pricing. We are toughening it. They were soft on competition in the petrol industry. We have introduced a Petrol Commissioner, a full-time cop on the beat, to ensure no price gouging and to ensure proper competitive conduct in the petrol industry in Australia. We are doing what they never had the wit to do, because they were so out of touch that apparently they believed there was not a cost-of-living pressure in Australia. Apparently, according to the Leader of the Opposition, they believed that interest rates were coming down. No wonder they have lost in the economic credibility stakes, according to the Australian people. They thought interest rates were going down. They say that everything was okay, that Australian working families had never been better off.

We have got news for them: Australian working families were and are doing it tough and they need somebody on their side, and the people on their side sit on this side of the chamber. The people on their side believe that you can make a difference through competition and transparency. The people on this side of the chamber believe that you can make a difference by putting downward pressure on prices by having transparency in the Australian petrol market—something those opposite ignored for 11 years. They were thrown out because they were out of touch. They were thrown out because they were full of people like the Leader of the Opposition, who says that interest rates were coming down, and the putative Leader of the Opposition, who says that an interest rate increase is overdramatised. Don’t lecture us about working families in Australia, because Australian working families finally have somebody on their side.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr Rudd’s amendment) stand part of the question.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The question now is that the words proposed to be inserted be so inserted.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move a motion that all words after ‘That’—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. I call the Leader of the House.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the question be now put.

Mr Speaker, I had the call.

Order! The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. The Leader of the National Party will resume his seat. Standing order 81 states:

Closure of question

After a question has been proposed from the Chair, a Member may move without notice, and whether or not any other Member is speaking—

That the question be now put.

The question must be put immediately and resolved without amendment or debate.