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to provide for a reduction in the price of a particular commodity being sold by a particular retailer, at no cost to the retailer - that is, they are able to get their product on the market more cheaply without having to cut their own margins - they would be very happy to do that. Who would not want to make sure that their product was more competitively priced and therefore be able to increase the turnover of their product?

To my surprise, Mr Speaker, that was not the case. The major oil companies did not appear to be the least bit interested in providing a lower cost product for the consumers of their product. It was quite bizarre, if you ask me. I am very happy to table the letters I have received from the oil companies, including Shell, BP and Mobil. Mr Speaker, I want to quote one particular letter from a company called Burmah Fuels Australia. Members might recall that Burmah Fuels was the company introduced into the ACT market to be a price leader, to set the direction, to get pricing down, to force others to follow it down and to get lower petrol prices. The first paragraph of their letter in response to my request to pass on benefits to consumers reads as follows:

It is Burmah Fuels' policy to follow retail petrol price trends rather than take a position as market leader.

I checked that I had read it correctly. Was this a forgery? Was this the same Burmah Fuels that Mr Connolly introduced into the marketplace to bring the prices down, to set the trend towards lower prices? Something has happened. The rot has set in, Mr Speaker. Even Burmah Fuels has got the rot as well.

MR CONNOLLY: By way of a supplementary question: Given that any assurance by an oil company that it could set or influence retail prices would be an admission of an ability to fix retail prices, thus constituting a serious offence under the Trade Practices Act - a matter which you would know is currently under investigation by the Trade Practices Commission - would you agree that this whole exercise of writing to the oil companies seeking an assurance which you knew, if given, would be an unlawful assurance was a mere ploy to hoodwink this community?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, Mr Connolly has lectured this place in previous years about how the oil companies set prices for Canberra, about how the oil companies collude to make sure that Canberra motorists pay higher prices for their petrol.

Mr Connolly: Yes, I think they do, but I would never expect them to put it in writing.

MR HUMPHRIES: “I think they do”, he says. Mr Speaker, if Mr Connolly thought he could change petrol pricing through his misguided measures, which cost small businesses in this Territory a great deal of money and were grossly unfair to them, I think it was fair enough for this Government to write to the same oil companies and ask them to do the right thing, as far as government taxes were concerned, and the reduction of those taxes, as far as benefit to the consumer was concerned. Mr Connolly knows full well that we were trying to find out the information that he himself has been trying for some time to get from those companies. This indicates, I think, Mr Speaker, what we all know about oil companies in this market, and that is that they are very unreasonable and treat the ACT very shabbily. Initiatives like the legislation I introduced this morning are designed to do something about that and make those companies stand up and pay attention to the ACT.

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