Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

At the beginning of 2022, after claiming that only the coalition could be trusted to keep petrol prices low, the Morrison government saw petrol prices hit 216c a litre in Sydney and 212c a litre in Melbourne. What did fuel companies face if they were engaged in a breach of the competition law? They faced not a serious penalty but a slap on the wrist—a $10 million penalty, that really wasn't a penalty; it was the entrance fee to the bad behaviour club. The fuel industry is one of our more concentrated industries. The big four have more than two-thirds of the market, compared to just a fifth for the big four fuel retailers in the United States. And so, when we came to office, we raised the penalties for anticompetitive conduct. We raised that maximum dollar figure from $10 million to $50 million—a five-fold increase—because, under Labor, penalties will not be a cost of doing business.

Today, the Treasurer, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and I have announced that a Labor government will double penalties for false or misleading conduct and cartel behaviour, up to $100 million per offence, across the economy. This very clearly demonstrates that only Labor can be trusted when it comes to looking after consumers and ensuring we have a more competitive and dynamic economy.

Under the coalition, we saw a rise in market concentration, an increase in mark-ups and a decrease in the small-business-creation rate, and we saw significant signs that the Australian economy wasn't as dynamic. Under Labor, we've set about putting in place a strong competition agenda. We've reformed Australia's merger laws—the biggest overhaul of our merger laws in 50 years—to ensure that the competition watchdog is able to properly scrutinise mergers and keep a lid on excessive market concentration in the economy. We've got national competition policy going again, with a $900 million productivity fund, working with the states and territories to try and get those sorts of productivity-boosting competition reforms that turbocharged productivity and boosted household living standards to the tune of some $5,000 a household in the 1990s. Reflecting that 1990s experience, we've refreshed the National Competition Council, now chaired by Marcus Bezzi, and we're working collaboratively with states and territories on a robust competition agenda. Labor knows that if we are to get productivity going again after it languished for the nine years in which the coalition was in office, we need competition reforms that'll work for Australians.

Today the Treasurer, the energy minister and I announced that we will task the ACCC to ramp up fuel price monitoring, reporting weekly, with a focus on unusual price spikes. We'll work with industry to increase fuel supply to service stations, including by helping the fuel sector secure ACCC authorisation to coordinate supply and unlock bottlenecks. This follows the Treasurer having written to the ACCC last week asking them to ensure that motorists aren't being taken for mugs. The ACCC has issued their own statement to retailers.

Labor has convened relevant forums: the National Coordination Mechanism to respond to emerging supply chain issues, the Trusted Information Sharing Network and the National Oil Supplies Emergency Committee. We've seen very volatile global oil prices. They jumped over the last few days to over $120 a barrel, falling back to $80 a barrel and then rising to $90 a barrel over a matter of hours. Australia is not immune to the uncertainty and volatility in the global economy, but our measures are about ensuring that petrol suppliers are doing the right thing and ensuring that the small minority of bad actors can't hurt regional Australians or farmers.

We need to be clear: Australia is not experiencing a fuel shortage. We're seeing localised disruptions due to significant spikes in demand. We have not had a single ship carrying oil to Australia that has been unable to get through. As the energy minister told the House during question time, 18 vessels have arrived this month. We are seeing spikes in demand, not any disruptions to supply.

What can political leaders do? Well, it's incumbent on all of us not to be fanning the flames but to be very clear with Australians that this is not the time for panic buying. We've seen that from some of those on the other side of the House, to their credit—the former leader of the Nationals, the member for Maranoa—but we have not seen it from every coalition state member or federal member around the country.

Labor have worked strongly to ensure that Australia's fuel reserves are healthy. Australia's fuel reserves are now healthier than they have been at any time in the last 15 years. Under the coalition, Australian fuel reserves were kept in the Northern Hemisphere—kind of a strange definition of 'Australian fuel security', you might think! It might have been very handy for the United States to have a bit more Australian fuel sitting in Texas and Louisiana, but it's an odd place to keep your fuel safety net—on the other side of the Pacific. Under the coalition we saw six of Australia's eight refineries close. If refinery closures were an Olympic sport, they would have swept the podium!

Labor have worked to boost the minimum stock obligation. We have on hand some three billion litres of diesel and some 1½ billion litres of petrol. The energy minister has issued an instruction that the minimum stock obligation should now be updated weekly, not quarterly, and that's in addition to the further reporting obligations that he put in place when we came into office in 2022.

We're also taking pressure off those fuel reserves by increasing the share of Australia's vehicle fleet that are electrified. When we came to office, some two per cent of cars sold were electric. That's now up to 14 per cent. That means there are fewer motorists placing demand on those fuel supplies. We've also seen changes within the electricity grid. Gas usage in the electricity grid in summer 2025 was about half what it had been in summer 2022. Global gas prices often follow global oil prices. This means the Australian electricity sector is less subject to those pressures.

The previous speaker, the member for Wannon, spoke about cost of living in general. I'm very happy to take on the member for Wannon on cost of living any day of the week. He is, after all, part of a party that went to the last election promising to raise income taxes for every Australian. Australian taxpayers are due to receive two further rounds of personal income tax cuts, which will add to the first round of tax cuts that commenced in July 2024. We're putting in place a new thousand-dollar instant tax deduction from 2026-27, which will reduce paperwork and provide tax breaks. We've cut student debts. We've provided cheaper medicines. We're making it easier to see a bulk-billing doctor. We've backed increases to minimum and award wages—something the coalition never did. We're helping Australians get a better deal on their energy bills. We're helping Australians get a better deal at the checkout.

Labor has a broad agenda for supermarket competition. Whether through ensuring that farmers get a fairer deal through our new mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct—which every member of the coalition in the House voted against—or whether through Choice's quarterly grocery price monitoring or whether through our first-in-16-years ACCC review of supermarket competition, Labor has provided an additional $30 million to the competition watchdog in order to crack down on misbehaviour by supermarkets.

On top of that, we will soon be bringing to parliament measures to ban unfair trading practices, subscription traps and drip pricing. As Matthew Cranston from the Australian reported at the beginning of the week, Australians lose some $46 million a year to subscription traps. Labor is putting an end to that—a cost-of-living measure and a fairness measure, because good businesses offering fair exits from subscriptions shouldn't be competing with dodgy players who are making it hard to get out of subscriptions.

Only Labor prioritises consumers. Only Labor is passionate about competition reform. Only Labor will deliver on putting downward pressure on prices, putting upward pressure on wages and improving the living standards of all Australians.

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