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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2519 ..

MR CORBELL: I have a supplementary question. Chief Minister, why do you not just admit that you do not know? That would make it a lot easier for all of us. Is it true that there has been such a low level of response to one of the two courses in the Unisys project, the millennium system tester training course offered by the CIT, that there is a chance that this particular course may not be run in the ACT again this year because of the very poor demand?

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, these courses are courses that people pay for.

Mr Corbell: Yes or no. Yes, no, or you do not know.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Just a moment.

MRS CARNELL: They are cost recovery courses, Mr Speaker. If there are not enough people who register for them they do not go ahead, usually.

MR OSBORNE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Fair Trading, Mr Humphries, and is about Woolworths Plus petrol outlets. Minister, the Government's decision to allow Woolworths to sell cut price petrol in the ACT has been regarded with a degree of criticism, in that a number of existing service station owners would be forced to close - a fact with which you agreed publicly last week. While most people in Canberra - myself included - want cheaper petrol as quickly as possible, what research has been made available to you on the likely impact that Woolworths will have on existing petrol outlets? How many of them are vulnerable to closure, and what effect will closures have on the viability of their local neighbourhood centres?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Osborne for that question. It is a good question. I did acknowledge frankly that the impact on existing retailers of petrol by the arrival of Woolworths Plus would be significant. That is a consequence of a decision which I have indicated, on the Government's behalf, needed to be taken and which I regret. It will be unfortunate for people affected by it. However, I also have to say, very clearly, firstly, that the changes that are taking place in the petrol industry are not changes limited merely to what is happening with Woolworths Plus. We have heard in the last two or three weeks about the proposal by an alliance between BP and a number of independent supermarkets in the ACT. We also have rumours around about a similar deal between another major grocery retailer and another major oil retailer to see similar arrangements put in place.

It is clear that there are winds of significant new competition blowing through the petrol industry, particularly the industry in Canberra, and the Government needs to decide between taking a highly protective approach to existing retailers and somehow completely restructuring the market to prevent those things from happening and preserving the present structure of relatively high prices or - - -

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