John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

I must declare at the outset of my participation in the debate this evening a vested interest in the outcome of the Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2006 and related matters. That is brought on by the fact that, sitting in front of my house, there are generally four vehicles, one of which is mine and the other three of which are driven by my adult children. The price of petrol, the consumption of petrol and the alternative fuels that might be available to them, not only now but in the longer term, are therefore very much of interest to me.

But, having said that, I am genuinely concerned for people of lower and fixed incomes who have access to motor vehicles who need them for their day-to-day lives, to either get themselves to work or for basic family needs, and find themselves challenged by the price of fuel, fluctuating almost on an ad hoc basis, in the various parts of Australia. Strangely enough it seems to be that, around weekends, the price magically jumps. No-one seems to know why; no-one can give a logical explanation. Sometimes we have not just daily but hourly fluctuations in petrol prices. That comes as a grave concern indeed. And last but not least is the old public holiday trick.

So, whilst we see in this instance a particular bill being repealed, what might follow in the wake of this bill comes as a grave concern. I know there is talk of oilcodes and other things such as that. But the legislation that is being repealed has been circumvented. The information I have says it has been eroded over time through both High Court and Federal Court decisions. Labor therefore supports the repeal of this legislation. But, as Mr Fitzgibbon said in speaking to this bill in the other place, that was contingent upon changes being made to the Trade Practices Act, particularly in respect of section 46, to ensure that there was no use of the market power that clearly rests with the fuel distributors in this country.

It was only a couple of years ago that I had the pleasure of being briefed by Exxon in the United States. My recollection of the briefing I had from them is that motor vehicle use and petrol use in the United States would continue at an exponential rate. It seems to me that, in spite of the changes in petrol prices in this country, there is no slackening off of the use of cars or fuel. One only has to go on the roads in any of our major cities, as I do from time to time when I visit them. The use of the market power of the oil companies is therefore of great concern. Also of concern, as my colleague Senator Hutchins said, is access to fuel supplies themselves and the alternatives to petrol or petrol substitutes that might be available over a period of time.

The minister, I understand, moved a regulation that undeclares the major oil companies under the existing legislation—which, of course, therefore renders the current legislation fairly useless. It covers no-one in particular and no-one in general. So the legislation needs to be sensibly repealed. Central to this, though, is not just the repeal of this act but the need, we on the Labor side claim, for changes to the Trade Practices Act such that an attempt can be made to give proper protection to motorists at large.

This was spelt out by the Labor senators in their additional remarks to the report of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee which looked into the details of this piece of legislation. That report was tabled in May 2006. I want to quote from the ‘Additional remarks from Labor Senators’ because I think that they are clearly pertinent in this matter. They will, of course, be known to those who were involved in the inquiry that was conducted by the economics committee. They acknowledged that the Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act and the Petroleum Retail Marketing Franchise Act 1980 and associated regulations represented, as they said:

... an outdated model for regulation of the petrol retail sector.

There is no doubt that we have conceded that. That is not in question. But they go on to say, in the second paragraph of those remarks:

Labor Senators however, are of the view that the principle issue in encouraging competition in this sector, and indeed across all markets, is strengthening provisions in the Trade Practices Act against misuse of market power.

And that, of course, is the real nub; that is the real key. They go on to say:

It is well known that section 46 of the Trade Practices Act has been rendered inefficient and ineffective because of a number of Federal Court and High Court cases.

They go on then to give some examples. At the conclusion of that paragraph, they say:

The ACCC has effectively given up taking cases under section 46 of the Trade Practices Act because it knows it has now been rendered ineffective.

Not surprisingly, their conclusion arising out of that is:

Therefore, Labor Senators believe that the most efficient market outcome will not be achieved unless s46 reforms are implemented concurrently.

So, after acknowledging that it is appropriate for this legislation to be repealed, the Labor senators then clearly outlined a process with a series of recommendations to strengthen section 46, which would see that protections were put in place against the misuse of market power by oil companies. I think that is very important indeed.

At the outset of my speech, I declared an interest. I said that four cars sit on the front driveway of my home—and a lot of people around here probably cannot relate to that. As I said, three of those cars I never get to drive and are driven in rotation. Of course, every time the price of petrol spikes or changes, my children invariably let me know.