Page 228 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 2019
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MR BARR: For a short period that injected some competition. But, as the interjection from Mrs Dunne indicated, that did not prove to be a long-term panacea. This is not an easy issue; there is no quick fix. I do not think anyone is proposing that there is a quick fix, but I think there is benefit in shining a light on the practices of certain retailers in this city and making them publicly account for the gouging they are undertaking on Canberra motorists.
It is also fair that we take further action so that consumers see in the advertised price, on the display boards for petrol stations, the true price and not the shopper docket discounted price. I am pleased the legislation Minister Rattenbury will be bringing forward will do just that. We need to reduce misleading price signage at petrol stations. There certainly have been attempts by retailers to lure people in with headline prices that most consumers do not actually receive.
We reach this point because the ACCC, for whatever reason—the cynics amongst us will observe which markets benefited from their deep-dive activities, and the fact that they were all marginal coalition seats tells you something—has not investigated the situation in Canberra. I have been to Sydney; I have met with the head of the ACCC. I have been pursuing this issue for many years now. We have limited powers, but we should investigate the full range of options available to us. In saying that, I understand, as does everyone in this place, that there is no one single, magic, simple solution to this issue. If there had been it would have been implemented by successive governments over many years throughout the history of self-government and, indeed, prior to self-government.
What we are seeking to do is to hold to account those who are gouging Canberra motorists and to get some factual information in relation to retail price margins that may inform a more dramatic government intervention in the future. I do not rule that out. I suspect that, of all of the options available to us, price watch schemes may have some impact, but they are not going to provide a 20-cent-a-litre reduction in fuel prices. The schemes already exist; people know where the cheap fuel is in Canberra. We need to recognise that those schemes have limited effect.
It may well be that the only way to get a territory-wide reduction in the outrageous fuel prices is for a direct government intervention to set a maximum retail margin in this territory. But before taking such dramatic action it is important that this Assembly committee undertake that work and that the ICRC provide that information to the government.
I am pleased the ACCC has also indicated willingness to cooperate and provide information to us. It would be a dramatic step for the government to seek to intervene to set a maximum retail price margin, but it is a step I am willing to take if nothing else will work, and the evidence suggests that that will be a lasting solution to this problem of price gouging in this city.
That is not a step that the government should take lightly, and that is why we have this process before us today. I hope the attention that the next six months will focus on the outrageous price gouging of some national retailers in our market will see them
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