Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question today is to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Can the minister indicate exactly when the Prime Minister directed the ACCC to monitor petrol prices over the June long weekend? Will the ACCC’s report be made public and, if so, when? Is the minister aware that across New South Wales petrol prices spiked by 10c a litre last Thursday to an average of $1.45 in Sydney and up to 6c higher in regional areas? Isn’t it true that these price hikes have nothing to do with the sudden increases in international oil prices, as the Prime Minister tried to claim last week? Is the minister aware that in Western Australia it was not a long weekend and that there was no 10c a litre price increase? Don’t motorists have every right to be cynical about the timing of petrol price increases when they keep being slugged at the start of every holiday period? Don’t they have a right to be cynical about yet another review into petrol pricing?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What the public has a right to be cynical about is the Australian Labor Party trying to play politics with the issue of petrol pricing. That is an extraordinarily cynical thing for the Australian Labor Party to do. Having been a party in government, they know full well that the price of petrol is directly a function of the price of crude oil, which has in fact increased substantially in the last year or so. Yes, it is true that crude oil prices are very high. That is reflected, as is always the case in every country on this planet, in higher prices at the bowser. We have no magic wand to change that. We have no effective means of ensuring that the mechanism by which supply and demand interact to determine the price of oil can be changed by waving a magic wand.

The government are extremely sympathetic to ordinary Australian families, who are bearing the brunt of those prices. We do not like it any more than they do. We wish that petrol prices were lower. We have acted to ensure that there is no upward driver of petrol prices on the part of the federal government by ending Labor’s indexation of the excise on petrol. We removed that indexation in 2001. At the same time, we lowered the excise itself so that the tax on petrol is now considerably lower than it would have been if we had simply maintained the Labor regime of indexing the excise and keeping the excise at the base level at which we inherited it.

We have constantly asked the ACCC to ensure that it does monitor petrol prices to make sure that there is no undue, improper or illegal activity. The ACCC regularly reports that it can find no evidence that petrol prices are unfairly pushed up by oil company profiteering. This is a highly competitive market. There are many retailers, most of them operating on very small margins. There has always been and probably always will be, given the nature of petrol retailing, considerable fluctuation in the retail prices that consumers find. As with most markets, the only advice that we can give to consumers is to ensure that they monitor the prices and that they do frequent those petrol stations that keep their prices low—that they go to those petrol stations which are offering competitive prices. We will continue to ensure that the ACCC does closely monitor petrol retail prices to ensure that there is no breach of the law, no breach of the Trade Practices Act.

But I would ask rhetorically: what is it that the Labor Party is proposing? Is the Labor Party proposing some sort of federal government price control of petrol? Is the Labor Party proposing that somehow we ask OPEC to lower its crude oil prices? The Labor Party has no answer to this. The Labor Party is just cynically exploiting consumer concern about this. The Labor Party can tell its own state governments to do what the Labor Party in Queensland—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order that goes to the question of relevance. The minister has had most of his time so far to answer the question. The precise question went to the Prime Minister’s announcement about ACCC monitoring last weekend. It also went to the comparison between the $1.45 in Sydney and the 10c not being applied in Western Australia. That is the anomaly that Senator Stephens raised in her question. The minister has made no attempt to address the question put to him and has sought to blame the Labor Party, after 10 long years of the Howard government, for everything that is wrong with petrol prices. I ask you to direct him to the question.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, you have 44 seconds to complete your answer. I remind you of the question.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, Mr President. As I was saying, the Labor Party is free to say to its own state Labor governments that they can give a rebate to consumers, just as the Queensland Labor government does. There is absolutely nothing to prevent state Labor governments from giving that rebate. They are the ones much more likely to be benefiting from high petrol prices than we are, given that they receive all of the GST. Of course, there is GST on petrol, all of which goes to the states. If Senator Stephens is so concerned about it, she can say to her state Labor government in New South Wales: ‘Why don’t you provide a rebate, just as the Queensland Labor government has done?’

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I am flabbergasted that Senator Minchin does not understand that families are now paying more than $100 for their fuel bills to fill up their cars prior to a holiday weekend. My question is: why were people paying $1.45 in Sydney and up to $1.49 in places like Junee in New South Wales at the weekend, and in Western Australia, where it was not a long weekend, they were paying 10c a litre less?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course we understand that Australian families do not like paying high petrol prices. That is why, as a result of our sound economic management, we are able to provide them with substantial tax cuts and family allowance increases which assist them in meeting those costs. Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.