Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. In late July, for example, an enforceable undertaking was accepted by the ACCC from a refrigeration contractor, Equipserve, to correct incorrect claims regarding price increases being wholly due to the carbon price. So I would urge the senator to reflect on the wisdom of picking up assertions, a number of which have been in the public arena for some time and which are not correct.

It is the case that some wholesalers did issue price lists with significantly increased prices. These price increases cannot be attributed to the carbon price alone. The minister has written to wholesalers to ask them to justify their price increases, and I also note, as I previously indicated, that an enforceable undertaking has been accepted by the ACCC in relation to one particular company in South Australia.

The senator referred to two gases, R404A and another one. I can come back to those in the supplementary.