Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Rudd promised to reduce petrol prices. He has not. Labor has failed and broken this fundamental pledge, like Labor has done with grocery prices. So Mr ‘I feel your pain’ Rudd has failed to provide pain relief through price relief at the bowser. The coalition has the plan and the will to ease the burden.

Another hallmark of Labor is the triumph of spin over substance, and Fuelwatch is the exemplar of spin over substance. First we were told that Fuelwatch would reduce petrol prices by 1.9c per litre. Then it was to be 2c per litre. Then we had the hapless Fuelwatch commissioner—remember him?—saying it would be 5c per litre. Then we were told Fuelwatch was not even about reducing petrol prices. And then we had the Treasurer, in a most desperate and quite pathetic effort, claim that savings of $10 per tank, or 20c per litre, could be achieved. And all these quite ridiculous and misleading claims were made in the face of all the evidence clearly indicating the contrary and, indeed, suggesting that prices would increase under Fuelwatch.

So overtaken by spin were Labor that they spent $100,000 of taxpayers’ hard-earned funds to develop a logo for Fuelwatch—before it was even passed through this place. Before the legislation was passed, they arrogantly concentrated on getting a slick logo to help us overlook Fuelwatch’s failures. I could have saved Labor that $100,000, because a perfect logo for Fuelwatch would have been the visage of Mr Rudd wearing a dunce’s hat with a big ‘F’ on it—F for failure, F for fatally flawed, F for foolish or F for ‘foolwatch’! Take your pick, the logo would be a great and accurate descriptor.

Throughout this disastrous process, we also witnessed the shameful and unacceptable abuse of the Public Service. We had Treasury trying to advocate for Fuelwatch before the Senate Standing Committee on Economics when we know that they, along with three other senior economic departments, had advised the government against Fuelwatch because it was so badly flawed. But Labor forced these public servants to appear before committees to support Fuelwatch against their advice to the government. They also forced individuals in Treasury to work 37 hours around the clock to get this legislation ready for tabling. Why? What was the urgency of it? We still do not have an answer despite that question being raised at Senate estimates.

Why was it done? It was done to answer the coalition’s popular and highly regarded budget response to reducing petrol prices. Mr Rudd unconscionably forced Treasury and other officials to work 37 hours straight in a pathetic attempt to regain the political agenda. There was no imperative other than Mr Rudd’s partisan political agenda. It was an abuse of the Public Service, which is totally and utterly unacceptable. This behaviour links in with Mr Rudd’s quite bizarre and manic predisposition. Why would any self-respecting Prime Minister make such a bizarre and manic demand of his Public Service to prepare, in 37 hours straight, that which the department itself had recommended against? It was simply for politics and for no other reason.

What was the reason the departments recommended against Fuelwatch? The evidence did not support the policy. Having promised evidence based policy during the election, Labor again broke faith with the Australian people and embarked on Fuelwatch, deliberately ignoring the wealth of evidence against it. In desperation, Labor even abused the parliamentary process of the Senate committee system. We got an urgent interim report in August because of an alleged urgency to get this report out to the community. That was in August. And here we are, three months later, debating it. The government could have brought this legislation on for debate in August if they had wanted to, but they did not. They made bureaucrats work 37 hours straight to get the legislation ready—because it was so urgent it had to be rushed—and now we have had a hiatus of three months. What happened to the urgency?

Even more concerning was the maltreatment of witnesses and the deliberate misquoting of evidence in the Senate economics committee report. Labor did not cherry-pick the evidence; they manufactured it. Witnesses wrote into the committee complaining of exactly that. It was not only the Australian Institute of Petroleum—who you might think may have had a vested interest—that made a complaint. The respected Royal Automobile Association of South Australia made a similar complaint. If there is one thing the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia are concerned about, it is representing the consumers—the petrol buyers—in South Australia. And they themselves were moved to write to the Senate committee to object to the way that the evidence had been mishandled, mistreated and, I would say, distorted. Although urgency was claimed in relation to bringing down the interim report, the final report was tabled two weeks after it could have been tabled in this place. There was no explanation from Labor as to the reason for that, and I think the Senate is entitled to one. What all this highlights is that Labor will stop at nothing to pursue their flawed agenda.

Let us now turn to Fuelwatch proper. This $21 million impost on Australia’s taxpayers will, if anything, increase petrol prices and not reduce them. Indeed, the one independent fuel provider quoted by Labor senators in the Senate economics committee report into Fuelwatch said that he favoured Fuelwatch—and that is where Labor stopped the quote, of course. They did not go on to tell the readers of the report why this independent vendor of petrol supported Fuelwatch. And do you know why it was? It was because Fuelwatch would increase his margins; he would make more money out of Fuelwatch. But the Labor senators deliberately cut and pasted the quote to make it read as though there was an independent fuel provider who actually supported Fuelwatch. The only one who supported it did so on the basis that he was of the view that he could make even greater profits. Who do you think would bear the consequence of that? The petrol-buying public of Australia—the consumers of Australia. That is why I compliment Senator Xenophon on his very strong stance against Fuelwatch. If there is one state and one lot of consumers in this country who would suffer very heavily under Fuelwatch, there is no doubt that it would be South Australia and the petrol buyers of South Australia.

The one place where Fuelwatch does operate, Western Australia, has been unable to provide any proof that there is in fact a reduction in price in that state. What is more, when we as a committee were over there in Western Australia asking questions of that department, they admitted as much. They agreed that they could not point to a price reduction for Western Australian consumers as a result of Fuelwatch.

I must say that the conversion of the ACCC to supporting Fuelwatch after years of opposition and ridiculing of Fuelwatch smacked of the adoption of the government’s agenda. To change their mind so conveniently around the time of the change of government in November last year does not build confidence or trust in the ACCC’s objectivity. Indeed, if we accept their evidence now, it leaves big questions over their previous advice to the Senate committees.