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

My question is to the Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism. I refer the minister to what he describes as a little problem: petrol at $1.60 a litre. Why did the minister originally advise his colleagues that Labor’s Fuelwatch scheme is anticompetitive, will hurt small business and will slug motorists hardest in areas like Western Sydney?

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question and simply say that I, like the Australian community, regard the problems in the international market with respect to the price of oil at the moment to be very challenging and a major difficulty for ordinary households. It is for that very reason that our cabinet has had serious debates about how we try and assist consumers. As the Leader of the Opposition knows, cabinet processes are robust and the best possible policy options emerge as a result of those robust discussions and the testing of ideas. I assume that he would never—and I can guarantee that I will never—reveal the nature of cabinet discussions.

This is about proper consideration in a free and objective way; it is about the best way forward for Australian consumers. It is not just about the initial decisions made. There is also ongoing work that I will assist cabinet colleagues with. That not only goes to the introduction of Fuelwatch in December of this year, which is about transparency and the capacity of Australian consumers to select the best possible price when purchasing fuel on a given day in a given place, but also goes to ongoing work that I have with other ministerial colleagues to introduce a review of the Oil Code, and that is currently underway. It also goes to conducting an audit of terminal capacity for petrol in ports. We are about guaranteeing that we can meet our future challenges as a nation whilst assisting consumers in the short term. I simply stand by the cabinet process. There was a full and proper process, and the right decision has been made.