Page 2075 - Week 07 - Thursday, 17 June 1993
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Mr Lamont: And wrong.
MR HUMPHRIES: You may think so, but I think the PSA is right, Mr Lamont. Let us assume for a moment that the PSA is wrong. Let us look at the Government's own processes for making a decision about what the fair way to regulate prices in the ACT should be. The Government commissioned the report of the ACT Government Working Group on Petrol Prices. In that report are a number of comments and a set of 16 recommendations. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us which recommendation says that you should have petrol price controls in the ACT. The answer, as the Minister's silence indicates, is none. Not once in this document is there a reference to price control legislation. That is because it is not considered to be a viable way of proceeding to bring down petrol prices. It is not the problem.
Madam Speaker, if the Minister had bothered to read carefully through this report he would have seen that the problem is other things. It is the lack of independent operators in the market; it is government policies affecting the location and siting of service stations; it is the dwindling number of operators in the market. Those are the things that this report says have brought us high petrol prices, and those are the things that the Minister must address in order to make the ACT market competitive and then bring down prices. It was misleading of the Minister in his statement yesterday to suggest, as I think he did, that these recommendations somehow give weight to his legislation. They do not. The report does not call for price control legislation. In fact, by implication it rejects it.
Madam Speaker, the reasons have been clearly stated. The PSA makes clear what those reasons might be. There may be some people in the ACT market who are profiteering. They would particularly be proprietors who were involved in obtaining service station sites some time ago, who have paid off their heavy investment and who now are charging the same as their peers when in fact that is not warranted in the circumstances. That is fair enough; but that would be, I dare say, only a minority of the market. Most of the people who have entered the market are still paying off their investment. They are paying off their investment at a level dictated by government policies. To force them now into a position where they cannot pay off that investment because government policy has changed is the grossest unfairness government can engage in. Madam Speaker, the Minister cannot shave petrol prices without cutting into the retailer's margin. It is that very margin which the PSA has already said is not excessive. To do so is grossly unfair.
The other disturbing feature of this Bill is the vagueness about when it will operate. Mr Connolly said yesterday something about "the legislation, even if only rarely used". Madam Speaker, the fact is that the Government seems to be intending to use this only on long weekends when petrol prices get to be a bit of a problem and Matthew Abraham is braying for some action.
Mr Connolly: It is at the long weekends that the prices leap.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, Mr Connolly does not seem to be aware that the petrol companies put up their prices at that time. The petrol wholesalers are taking advantage of the long weekends, not the retailers in the ACT. It was the petrol wholesalers who on 10 June put up petrol prices by 0.53c a litre, not the retailers. The retailers have held back three preceding price rises from the ACT consumer.
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