Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Of course I had an interest in the impact of FuelWatch on small business and so I made some inquiries. Those inquiries revealed, for example, that upon the introduction of FuelWatch in Western Australia, in the period from 2001 to 2007, the number of independents went up quite substantially. This is no secret, because the member could have checked out the relevant website today. He would have found out that as of today there are 93 different independents operating in the metro markets in Western Australia. I will give a couple of examples: Gull has 28 outlets, Independent has 15, Better Choice has three, Quick Fuel has one, Liberty has eight, Peak has 20, United has 15, Westco has three, for a total of 93. In addition, in non-metro outlets, there are 64 independents operating, bringing the total to 157.

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