Page 3469 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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Madam Speaker, I have announced today that I intend to commission legislation to be brought before this chamber to amend the Fair Trading (Fuel Prices) Act 1993 - Mr Connolly's measure of earlier this year - to require all petrol stations in the ACT to display prominently a notice breaking down all the taxation levied by the Commonwealth and ACT governments on petrol. This notice will be required, under the proposal, to list the amount in cents per litre and the percentage of the per litre price of petrol payable to the Government of the Commonwealth or of the Australian Capital Territory for each tax or charge that forms part of the retail price. Also, the notice will be required to display the oil company's price and the retailer's margin. That, Madam Speaker, will provide information for an educated community, an educated consumer, an educated electorate. Canberra's consumers have a right to know what proportion of taxation this Government and its Federal mates charge them for petrol. Right now, as I said, over half the price paid by consumers for their petrol goes to governments, either Federal or local.
I need not remind members that, had a coalition government been elected on 13 March this year, the price of petrol on 1 October next year would be 26c a litre cheaper for leaded fuel and 24c a litre cheaper for unleaded fuel than with the levels of taxation imposed by the Federal Labor Government. Petrol stations are being used by Labor as tax collection stations. Labor has set out to make as much money as possible from the petrol pump. The point I make, Madam Speaker, is that high government charges for petrol are not inevitable. They are not just a fact of life. They can be changed. ACT consumers expected a lot better of the Government, this ACT Government particularly, than to increase the price of petrol in the last budget. A government which prides itself on so-called social justice - what a tattered phrase "social justice" is - sickened the electorate by first raising the price of petrol and then hitting home users of diesel fuel with a large tax on their home heating bill.
In fact, one only has to look at the record to see what Ms Follett said before on her Government increasing petrol prices by using the business franchise fee. (Extension of time granted) Ms Follett told the Assembly on 29 June 1989:
The ACT Government will not be introducing the petrol franchise tax that has been introduced by the New South Wales Government, so there will be no rise in ACT petrol prices brought about by action of this Government, I can assure you of that.
Mr Cornwell: Who said that?
MR HUMPHRIES: That was Ms Rosemary Follett, then Chief Minister of the ACT, in 1989. She said:
... there will be no rise in petrol prices brought about by ... this Government ...
What rubbish!
Mr Connolly: In 1989.
Ms Follett: That was the previous Government, I should point out.
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