Page 146 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 23 February 1994
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Alternatively, some operators will have access to home computers and will therefore be able to print out a form and put it on the bowser without needing to go through this other process. The information is broken down into only four categories. It is therefore simple to do the calculations and the form is easy to use. There are minor penalties provided for failing to provide customers with the required information. It is essentially, however, an educative exercise, not a penalising exercise.
Mr Deputy Speaker, why do we need this legislation? The answer is that there has been tremendous political debate in the last few months in particular, but over the last few years as well, about the nature of fuel pricing in our community. That has been a debate raging both at the local level and at the Federal level. The debate has been often very acrimonious. It has been a very complex debate. There are many consumers who have only a very vague idea of what the debate is all about. There has also been considerable hypocrisy permeating the debate. Parties who have been beating their chests and pointing their fingers at other parties have, in the next breath, been responsible for price rises themselves.
At the present time in the ACT, the total taxes paid by the consumer at the bowser on petrol stand at a somewhat astonishing 61 per cent. I do not know of any other product available in our community which incurs a tax burden quite as high as that. What this legislation does is ensure that accurate and complete information is available to the consumer at the place where it actually matters, so that Mr or Mrs Canberra can be at the petrol bowser with the nozzle in their car and while they are standing there looking at the bowser they can see accurately what it is they are actually paying for with their dollars. That information is very important, because at the present time up to three-fifths of the cost of a tank of petrol is going to government, to the ACT and Federal governments. Let me give a break-up as of today's petrol price for unleaded petrol, which I think is about 68.4c a litre.
Mr Connolly: And what was it three months ago, before this Labor Government acted? It was 76.4c before this Government acted. If you were running the show, it would still be 76.4c.
MR HUMPHRIES: People should be able to see what you are achieving in the way of lower petrol prices. I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, that Mr Connolly will be very supportive of this legislation, because it will allow people to see just what the ACT Government has done, allow them to see where it is that the Government has achieved its lower petrol price. With a price of 68.4c a litre, 34.8c a litre goes to the Commonwealth Government. That is just over 50 per cent of the total price. The ACT Government gets 7c a litre, which is just over 10 per cent of the price, making the total tax burden of 61.1 per cent. Most of the rest goes to the fuel company which distributes the petrol, and about 7 per cent of the total price goes to the retailer. I might point out that the retailer has tended to cop a very large share, perhaps a larger than 7 per cent share, of the total blame for the problems of petrol price rises in recent years. Perhaps this process will make it clear to people that retailers, while not entirely blameless for some price rises, are nonetheless generally not the main culprits when it comes to the high price of petrol.
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