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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3123 ..

MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr Humphries. On 26 August there was an article in the Chronicle related to Woolworths Plus petrol stations in which you said:

I have told Woolworths that the Government is not prepared to accept their initial bid of thirteen service stations and that further releases will be considered when we consider the effects its entry is having on petrol prices and on existing Canberra businesses.

Last week, when the Greens called for it to be limited to four, you told WIN News that was silly and illegal. How does this statement sit with your claim in the Chronicle that you do have the power, if you chose to use it, to restrict it to four sites? What power do you actually have?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, that is a good question and I thank Ms Tucker for it. The Government decided that to refuse to grant sites under the process of application that Woolworths had made for petrol station sites for the Woolworths Plus outlets in the ACT would be a process that would certainly be subject to competition rules and the principles outlined in the national competition agreement. It was therefore felt that the process whereby the Government might, for example, decide to restrict sites to a certain number per township could arguably be said to be subject to some restriction under the national competition principles.

The important point to bear in mind, however, is that most of the sites that Woolworths is in the process of acquiring or has acquired for the purpose of selling petrol in the ACT are not sites acquired from the Government. They are sites acquired directly by negotiation with existing owners of existing sites. They have acquired a site at Tuggeranong Town Centre from Shell, or at least from someone who was renting previously to Shell; they have already purchased their own site at Conder at an open auction; and I understand that they are well advanced in negotiations with the Westfield centre, Belconnen Mall, for the purchase of a site there, again purchasing from an existing owner. The issue Ms Tucker raises, I believe, would be more pertinent if the Government were releasing all the sites itself.

What Ms Tucker has urged on me - that is, that we should restrict the additional release of sites in the future - is partly the Government's position already; that is, we have said that we want to release a minimum number of sites at this point in time and see how those sites produce further competition in the retail petrol market. However, and this is perhaps where we part company, I have indicated that where they demonstrate the capacity to deliver lower petrol prices we will consider releasing further sites. I take it that Ms Tucker has said that, even if that is the case, she wants there to be a restriction on the release of further sites, or no further release of sites from the minimum number released under this program. I accept that the position the Government has taken may face difficulty with the competition principles, but that is the view we take. We will cross the bridge when we come to it if further sites are required to be released.

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