John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I say in reply to the member for Bendigo: it is not correct to say that we do not have monitoring. We do have monitoring and there was, in fact, monitoring that was carried out in the lead-up to the Queen’s Birthday weekend. That monitoring produced the outcome that was consistent with monitoring of similar events on other occasions, and that is that the discounting of the retail price which takes place during the week because of the higher volume demands at the weekend disappears. That results in the alteration in the price.

I know, as the member for Bendigo knows and I think everybody in this country knows, that the price of petrol is painfully high. It is, however, of no help to sensible debate and no help to the hard-pressed Australian motorist for false claims to be made and false dawns to be offered in relation to how you can cut the price. It is due overwhelmingly to the high price of crude oil. If there had been a solution, that solution would have been lighted upon and implemented with enormous enthusiasm long before now. But I can assure the member for Bendigo that, if there are other productive things that can be done in relation to price monitoring, the government stands ready to do so.

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