Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Service stations in my electorate do not have fuel. There are two clients in the fuel world. There are those that buy on contract. They're, like, large transport companies; they're the big retailers; they're the Coles and the Woolworths. They say to the refiners: 'I want this much volume, and I'm prepared to pay this much margin.' Then there's the second buyer: there's the buyer who buys it on spot price, who buys on a daily rotation. Most of the wholesalers, the fuel distributors, in my electorate, buy in that market. The minister for energy cannot have it both ways—cannot come in here and say: 'The boats are arriving; we've got the fuel,' and yet, when my spot buyers go to buy from the terminals, they're told: 'There is no fuel for you today.' The fuel's there, or it's not. They're the two markets. If we're going to fix this problem, if the government is confident that the supply is there, then release the contracted fuel to the spot market, to get rid of the panic buying which is in the market at the moment—because it is the government's lack of intervention in this. It is the refiners who are profiteering.

Now, I understand the government has done the right thing by saying: 'ACCC, go your hardest.' But I cannot remember a point in history where the ACCC has had a successful victory over the large operators; it's always the smaller operators. This problem can be solved. I'm going to take up the minister's invitation, that he offered today, to go and meet with him, to discuss how we turn this around, because Australians don't want to hear us squabbling; they want this fixed. And they don't want to see what we've just seen happen in this chamber right now.

See this speech in context