VACC wants action on petrol prices

By Alborz Fallah | October 24th, 2008

The Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC) wants the Federal government to step up and take action on rising petrol prices.

Mr Joe Dimasi, the new Petrol Commissioner, recently acknowledged that he has written to all the major oil companies “asking them” to explain the high petrol prices. The ACCC, which is increasingly been referred to as “toothless”, is said to be working hard to break down the barriers that prevent greater competition at the wholesale level in the petrol market.

Nonetheless, VACC Executive Director, David Purchase is not happy:

“Mr Dimasi does not need to write to the oil companies. He should already have all the evidence he needs at his finger-tips from previous investigations. What he really needs to be doing right now is taking the oil companies to task,” Mr Purchase said.

Nor do we blame him, there are only so many letters and requests that can be sent before proper action needs to be taken. The VACC has requested that Mr Dimasi immediately look at the operation of the wholesale petrol market and the issue of Terminal Gate Prices.

According to VACC the biggest losers here (apart from the consumers) are independent service station owners who are being denied a fair price. With the independents unable to compete fairly, there is an immediate pricing disadvantage discouraging competition in the market.

“For too long the oil majors have enjoyed top-to-bottom control of the petrol industry and the ACCC admitted as such, referring to the ‘comfortable oligopoly’ in the 2007 Inquiry. Until someone comes out swinging, then the oil majors will continue to rule the roost and give the Petrol Commissioner the run-around.

Meanwhile the Rudd government’s national Fuelwatch Scheme is under scrutiny once again with VACC labelling the system as flawed.

What should/can the Federal government do to reduce petrol prices?

http://skyline The Salesman

I would like to start a revolution here. We break up Australia into regions, each day an appointed regional negotiator receives by e mail or fax each servo’s best price, then all customers in the region commit to only buying fuel from that station for that day, if the others are to dear they go hungry. We have the power people; all we have to do is make it happen. Forget waiting for the Man to fix it for us, vote with your feet, commit to my new plan and start saving now, I have a dream.
Vote One Salesman…..
Realcars

Given the drop in price of sweet sweet crude a barrel and the corresponding drop in the value of the Aussie dollar against the Yank dollar we are still roughly paying at least 20% too much at the pump considering the price isn’t far off the highs of when sweet sweet crude was 140-150 yanks a barrel.
Realcars

Prob with your plan is that the oil companies by and large set the price.
Tranquillizer

crude oil is $67.56 at the moment. and pump price is 147.9 at my local BP in melbourne. WTF. this pump had this price even when crude oil was at $137.00.
Falcodore

Wow, what a shock, we’re paying too much for fuel?! As ive been saying for ages, the ACCC are just a bunch of gutless ‘yesmen’.
Maybe if they gave em guns and badges they might grow some stones…hmmm. Just a thought.
Tom

The weak exchange rate and global recession wouldn’t be helping, but definitely, petrol prices need to drop rapidly, below $1 a litre.
Capri_XR2

Im pretty sure that 4 years ago our dollar was about 72c and the barrel price was $75 -$85/ barrel and the litre price was 98c
I would like to see the stats on a chart to see if we a being ripped off and by how much
Al Juraj

Oil companies tend to make $1.5M a day for overpricing. In some other countries, when world prices increase, they increase accordingly, but when it decreases, the come up with an excuse saying, “We’re just finishing off our old stock which was bought more expensive.”
Glen

We should stop importing oil. We import around 25% of our oil so it can be charged at international prices.
Frontman

I’m going to go out on a limb here and ask the question. Do you really think the ACCC (a government sponsored and run dept) are actually going to do anything to push the pump price down? I mean really? Considering that the Government (both Federal & State) earn dollars as a percentage rate of the price of Fuel. So the Higher the price, the more they earn. It’s not in their interest to have the fuel price drop. It would upset the ugly ducklings budget forcasts for one, and a certain leader would not be able to spend as much time flying around the world and flying his cabinet meetings to different locations everytime they get bored.
Political parties and persuasions kept out on purpose
http://none Ra

Well after dealing with the TIO & Dept of Fair Trading in the past I can say that the ACCC is like a fart without the smell all you get is a gush of air.
Phill

What we need to do is a bit of the old Divide and Conquer tactics and start a price war between the oil companys by boycotting say all Shell servos for 1 day.The next day boycott all BP for one day and so on,could that work???
http://faster DanMan

How about we invade some middle east countries to secure ‘our’ rightful supply of black gold.. oh we did that didn’t we?

Hmmm how about we consume less? Oh that’s right we are decadent westerners and we dont understand that… My bad.

How about, as James May suggested, we stop buying other cr@p in our life we dont need to be able to afford something we do need… Might be an idea.

or get a job with a fuel card. LOL
RoFlmaTiC

The Salesman said: “I would like to start a revolution here. We break up Australia into regions, each day an appointed regional negotiator receives by e mail or fax each servo’s best price, then all customers in the region commit to only buying fuel from that station for that day, if the others are to dear they go hungry.”

SOunds like fuelwatch :p
JasonP

Salesman, worth a try.

Can you mind my place in the queue?

If I was the “boycotted” station that day, I’d just drop my price thru the floor for a few hours, just to mix things up.
http://skyline The Salesman

I think it would work, people power. When we shop for a new car or are getting some work done on the house we shop around and get some quotes. Why can this not be the same?
Dennis

Sad thing is, in reality, there’s very little we can do. Last i heard, OPEC was cutting production to stop the price drop of oil…
http://www.noisekiller.se/ Matériel d’insonorisation

wounder if the next big war will be because of oil or water?
Minnow

Well anyone can get fresh water with enough energy, its still going to be over sources of energy. Could be uranium, who knows…
Tranquillizer

@Matériel d’insonorisation
cant you see its happening. attack on iraq and conflict with iran, with saudi arabia and kuwait already under control. its all happening for oil or Black Gold what they call in arabia.
http://navelcontemplation.blogspot.com/ SuperCujo

The petrol companies aren’t overcharging at all. They are charging what the market will pay. It is up to you whether you buy it or not. If petrol was too expensive less people would be buying it, but it seems as though the petrol companies are happy with the current situation.

If you owned a business selling apples and had to sell them at $3.50 a kilo to cover your costs and make a little profit, if you could sell them at $4.00 and make a larger profit with no drop in sales, why wouldn’t you do it?

We live in a free market and the oil companies are under no obligation to sell petrol to you at charity prices, they are allowed to make a profit. The amount of profit they make is up to all of us and our choice to purchase their product.
JEYKL & HYDE

supercujo,i agree with your point,but would like to raise the following issue:if tomorrow some wise man comes up with an alternate to petrol,and it would be very safe to assume that this has happened allready,then guess who steps an quickly to buy him out…the oil barons.just think,20 years ago someone had a water powered car,but while the precious oil is continuing to stuff up the WHOLE world,this techology won’t see the light of day.if everbody see’s the oil companys as crooks,its for a reason…imagine if your car/home energy costs were zero.would you consider yourself “free”?
http://faster DanMan

J & H,

Look at wiki / water fueled car for more interesting features on this issue…
http://navelcontemplation.blogspot.com/ SuperCujo

What’s with the awaiting moderation thing?
http://navelcontemplation.blogspot.com/ SuperCujo

J&H: You have been listening to too many crackpots and conspiracy theorists. The water powered car idea has been around for many many years and there has not been one demonstrated and verified properly. In the quantities of water that would be carried on a car, there is simply not enough energy in water to get anywhere. Remember, it takes vast amounts of energy to split the water into its separate components. There has been some progress made in the development of fuel cells that split water but they are still in their infancy.
Cupid Stunt aka No Name

Funny we’ve seen a 50% decrease in the cost of crude and here (UK) fuel has only dropped 20%. OK even taking into account the exchange rates of 15% fuel is still about 20-25% too expensive. Yep we’re getting conned. I’m off to by some more AA’s for the prius. (Joking)