Page 3615 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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At page F12 there is a chart which shows Canberra and Sydney prices. It demonstrates a point that we have made so often - that the major difference, which has in the past been well above 10c, has shrunk very dramatically as a result of the Burmah entry. The graph tracking Canberra prices begins in November 1992. We are now in October 1994; so that is nearly two years. The price of petrol started at 74c for the unleaded product and had not tracked below 70c in that entire two-year period until we got Burmah into the market, and now we are operating at 67.5c.
Mr Humphries: Until the world oil prices fell, too - a small matter!
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, it is true that there are variations because of world prices.
Mr Humphries: And the Australian dollar strengthening.
MR CONNOLLY: There are daily variations in the price of crude oil because of the strength of the dollar. In the past, when there were those daily variations upwards, the Canberra motorist copped them straightaway. You would listen to AM and hear that the price of crude oil had gone up, and up would go the price at the bowser. But then you would hear on AM the next day that the price of crude oil had gone down and, if you were in Sydney, down would come the price at the bowser. If you were in Canberra, it was like a ratchet; it would go up, but it would not come down. What has happened in the period since we introduced competition into this market and delivered on our promise to go on with that?
As this is a cognate debate, I should table the Government's response to report No. 13 of the Public Accounts Committee on petrol pricing arrangements. I formally table that report. The Government had considered that report in recent weeks. We released a copy of it to all members. I wrote to all members with a copy of my response. Subsequently, on 9 October, we placed ads in the Canberra Times and certain national newspapers, calling for formal expressions of interest in the three additional sites. Since we have injected that competition into the Canberra market, Canberra motorists have been getting the benefit of the fall in world oil prices and the benefit of the increased value of the dollar. Any Canberra motorist who went away over the recent October long weekend would have noticed two things. First, they would have noticed that we actually have countercyclical price movements around a long weekend. The Liberals want to go back to the bad old days. The Canberra public need to remember that, at every point, these people opposite have objected to what we have done on retail petrol price competition.
The current Opposition leader, who is not here at the moment, even made the breathtakingly silly promise that she would compensate the oil industry to the tune of $9m for the effect of our competition. So, not only is Mr Humphries promising that they are going to knock off the 3c petrol tax, which is $9m worth of hospital beds, nurses, doctors, policemen and teachers, but she has also said - - -
Mr Humphries: That is a distortion.
MR CONNOLLY: They are at it again. She has also said that she is going to compensate the industry for the effect of competition by giving it $9m.
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