Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On several occasions in this place I have raised the impact on my constituents of rising petrol prices. I have never received any satisfaction from the ACCC in response to submissions that I have made on their behalf, particularly about what appeared to me to be evidence of collusion, with price rises occurring quite simultaneously at the end of the week over the period of months that I investigated.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was just coincidence!

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right. In my electorate, over a period of 20 months the price of petrol rose by 50 per cent, from 94c a litre to a high at one stage of $1.40. It was clear to anyone examining these price hikes that excessive profits were being bagged and that refiners were lifting their profit margins, ripping off consumers in the post-Hurricane Katrina period—or using that as the reason. The government sat on its hands making excuses but offering no solutions. It was not even prepared to direct the ACCC to undertake a formal inquiry into soaring petrol prices and to establish what was going on in refining margins.

As well as the impact of petrol prices on the community, my constituents have raised with me their concern about the steep hikes in the price of LPG. At the time they raised these concerns the local price of LPG had risen as high as 59c a litre. They wanted me as their member to investigate the reasons for these price hikes and bring the matter to the government’s attention. I am pleased to say that the Parliamentary Library has assisted me in establishing what has been occurring in the LPG market. As we know, in 1991 the federal government deregulated the wholesale price of LPG in Australia. That price is now set in world markets, as is the case with petrol. Local producers set prices on the basis of import parity tied to a benchmark for international prices known as the Saudi CP. That is related to crude oil prices, so it is inevitable that prices that move internationally will be reflected here.

But what worries me is the substantial fluctuation in the retail price of LPG. For example, in November 2005 the LPG price in Australia’s five major mainland cities ranged from around 44c a litre to about 68c a litre. Constituents in Hobart and Darwin always suffer from the burden of much higher prices. If you look at the average monthly LPG price in Sydney over a period of years, it has risen from 35c in January 2000 to 58.7c in January 2006, an increase of more than 50 per cent. The ACCC, which is there to protect consumers, is not performing any formal price monitoring for either petrol or LPG. The time for action is now. The government should instruct the ACCC to undertake consistent formal monitoring of both petrol and LPG prices. (Time expired)