Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just cannot let that go. Here we are pulling the rug out from underneath independent service stations. They already have their backs to the wall and here is the government hell bent on seeing them disappear. This is a joke. I heard the minister saying that this will hinder discounting—‘stop discounting’ were his words. That is so far from the truth that it is not funny. We are talking about a very serious issue here. Petrol and its supply are essential. Talk to people off the street. I did that this morning and you can see a video blog on my website of me talking to someone off the street.

This is an absolute joke. It is an indictment. This is a commonsense amendment that the government is paying lip service to. I cannot believe that there is only one National Party senator willing to speak on this issue. This is all about independent small businesses. Yesterday, in the committee stage debate on the Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2006, we also heard of amendments which would have protected and made sure that we had real competition.

This issue is starving independents of knowing what they have to do to reach a discounted price. We need to make sure we have a level playing field. We should not be pulling the rug out from underneath independent service stations. Talk to people out there. Talk to families and share with them. They do not know what is happening today. They have no idea what is happening in here today because this government has not shared with the public what we are doing here and what impact it will have down the track. So I appeal again to the government to have commonsense.

This is a fair and reasonable amendment to show that we have open and transparent pricing. It is an essential good. We cannot do without it today and we need to make sure that we are allowing independents to survive in this marketplace. Again, I appeal to the government to support this amendment.