Page 3639 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 1 November 2023
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comparative to other capital cities. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has had a longstanding role of monitoring retail prices of unleaded petrol, diesel and LPG in Australian capital cities and in more than 190 regional locations. The ACCC prepares quarterly reports on the Australian petroleum market, which include information on developments in the petroleum industry, ACCC monitoring activities, components of petrol prices, and price movements in capital cities and regional locations across Australia.
There is a general sense that fuel prices in the ACT are higher than in other jurisdictions. I would like to highlight that the most recent ACCC petrol quarterly report of June 2023 found that Canberra’s average retail fuel price was 187.2 cents per litre, marginally higher than Sydney, at 183.1 cents per litre, and Melbourne, at 185 cents per litre. Compared to the top five capital cities’ average fuel prices, Canberra’s average fuel price was within 4.3 cents per litre. By using FuelCheck, Canberrans effectively have the ability to monitor fuel prices themselves, and they have the option to pay less than the national average petrol price by shopping around.
Following the pilot of FuelCheck use in the ACT, an analysis of data obtained from FuelCheck use in the ACT has been compared with data obtained from the Australian Institute of Petroleum to reflect 10-month average prices. Between 6 November 2022 and 3 September 2023, the ACT’s average retail price for standard unleaded of 185.7 cents per litre was marginally higher than the national average of 185.5 cents per litre, and the ACT recorded an average diesel price of 211 cents per litre, which is 3.2 per cent higher compared to the national average of 204.4 cents per litre.
While average ACT fuel prices were higher than the national average during this 10-month period, by shopping around and using FuelCheck, an ACT motorist could have paid less than the national average by around eight cents per litre for standard unleaded and 12 cents per litre for diesel. The ACT government does not undertake formal petrol price monitoring for the reasons that it would be costly and duplicative of the work already undertaken by the ACCC in this space. Having considered the current monitoring undertaken by the ACCC and the data on ACT fuel prices able to be obtained from the FuelCheck scheme, the ACT government is able to consider trends in fuel prices in the ACT in a way that it has not previously been able to.
We are seeing motorists have the capacity to save, to see information on when the best day of the week is to buy and to receive alerts on when prices drop at favourite stations. Coupled with the successful educative and engagement approach to compliance that has been undertaken by Access Canberra, there does not appear to be a need for formal fuel price monitoring by the ACT similar to that already undertaken by the ACCC.
My message to Canberrans is simple: FuelCheck gives you the capacity to save money when you fill up. It allows you to make the choice of whether it is worthwhile filling up at one station and saving up to 10, 15 or 25 cents per litre, or whether it is worthwhile paying more.
I will take the indulgence, Madam Speaker, to thank the Scullin Service Centre for the station that will be opening this Friday, 3 November. It has been a long, long time coming. I remember first talking with Mark, the owner of that site, more than four
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