Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan as the Minister representing the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Revenue. Does the minister recall the Prime Minister last year dismissing as ‘simplistic’ the suggestion that the ACCC be given enhanced powers to police petrol prices? Can the minister confirm that the Prime Minister has now changed his tune and said that he will examine how the ACCC can expand its powers to police petrol prices? Didn’t the Prime Minister also say to oil companies that Australians will not tolerate being taken for a ride? Why have motorists had to wait 11 years for the Prime Minister to even acknowledge that the ACCC might be able to do something about petrol prices?

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for this question. The interesting point about this is the ACCC has taken action against various petrol-retailing cartels. The ACCC is equipped, and has repeatedly said that it is equipped, to take enforcement action under the Trade Practices Act if there is evidence of anticompetitive behaviour. It is interesting that on 1 December 2005 the ACCC announced that it successfully brought action against a petrol price-fixing arrangement in the Brisbane area. In Ballarat the ACCC had also successfully prosecuted members of a petrol price-fixing cartel. The ACCC has also done so in Geelong. On 11 November 2003 it said that it had instituted court proceedings, as everyone knows, against eight companies and 10 individuals in the area alleging price fixing of retail petrol prices in contravention of the TPA.

The ACCC has said repeatedly that it has the powers to take whatever action it needs to ensure that the rises in petrol prices do not represent any kind of price fixing or cartel action. There have been multiple inquiries into the fixing of petrol prices. The other day the Prime Minister said that Mr Rudd’s announcement that Labor would give the ACCC more powers is redundant. Mr Samuel has said that those powers are not necessary because the ACCC has those powers. The Prime Minister has said that if Mr Samuel asked for more powers they will be given. That has been unequivocal. The Prime Minister has always said that if further powers for the ACCC are necessary that is what will happen. The interesting thing is that, in many respects, state governments control the price of petrol. Isn’t it interesting that state Labor governments do not seem to be exercised at all by the issues that seem to be troubling the federal Labor Party about petrol prices? Federal Labor are opportunistically trying to find some hole in the ACCC’s powers when the state governments are busily increasing the prices of petrol. We find in Tasmania, for instance, in the last budget, the price of petrol was raised by 2c a litre. In the latest budget in Victoria petrol prices have been raised by a further cent. This is not the action of a political party—‘Labor’ by any name is the same whether it is federal or state—that is interested in an issue that impacts on consumers.

This government has shown a consistent interest in the interests of consumers, and the price of petrol is something that we keep a very close eye on, together with the ACCC. You cannot seriously imagine the Labor Party doing anything about the indexation of petrol. It is not something that the Labor Party would have done. When let loose, the Labor Party increase the price of petrol, as they have done in both Tasmania and Victoria. So this is Labor hypocrisy at its worst. This is Labor hypocrisy writ large—saying one thing but doing another. (Time expired)

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, haven’t petrol price hikes on long weekends been occurring for years? Why has the Prime Minister been in denial for so long about whether the ACCC can do anything about it? Aren’t Australians entitled to be cynical when the Prime Minister only acknowledges a problem when he feels the political heat of an election year?

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would have thought that the document that we have seen today from the ACTU shows who is worried about feeling the heat during an election year. Labor’s state colleagues are busily raising the price of petrol and trying to blame us. They talk out of both sides of their mouths. No-one can take the Labor Party seriously, because they say one thing and then turn around and do something completely different.