Treasurer Jim Chalmers has written to Australia’s consumer watchdog urging for extra scrutiny of price increases at the bowser as a temporary cut to the fuel excise ends on Monday.
Motorists are bracing for further bowser price pressure more than three months after the Albanese government first slashed the excise – a tax applied to wholesale fuel imports – as the war in the Middle East sent prices soaring.
A 32 cent per litre discount was cut in half in June, and from midnight on August 2 will be removed altogether.
As that deadline loomed, Mr Chalmers on Friday wrote to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb asking the agency to focus on service stations hiking up prices.
He asked the ACCC to increase “scrutiny of fuel prices as fuel excise rates return to their normal settings to help ensure the change is appropriately reflected in prices paid by consumers”.
“The restoration of excise rates to normal settings cannot be used as a pretext for false, misleading or otherwise unjustified price increases,” the letter stated.
“I expect the ACCC, as the independent regulator responsible for enforcing Australia’s competition and consumer laws, to investigate any concerns regarding misrepresentations about petrol prices, false and misleading conduct or anti-competitive conduct in petrol markets, and to take appropriate action.”
Mr Chalmers said any price increase that could not be explained “will face serious scrutiny from the ACCC”.
“Servos and suppliers are on notice. The regulator will be watching them like a hawk,” he said.
“We’ve jacked up the penalties for petrol stations that rip off Australians. They face multimillion-dollar fines if they break the law.
“Our cut to the fuel excise helped take the sting out of petrol prices at their peak.”
The average price of unleaded 91 sat at 189c per litre at the outbreak of the war on February 28, before rising to 257 cents per litre by March 31.
The excise cuts helped bring those prices back down 152c by June 30. They have since risen to 193c per litre.
Earlier, Health Minister Mark Mr Butler said the change to the excise, much like the last cut, would not result in an immediate jump in fuel prices.
“When half of the excise was returned a month ago, you saw the price creep up over several days, and I would expect the same to happen here,” the Health Minister told News24.
Mr Butler said the government had “been honest” about the impact the change would have at the bowser and that deflationary impacts would “equalise when it goes back to situation normal”.
However, pressed on whether the government had considered a continuation of the cut, Mr Butler said while relief was important it was also “important to ease the return to situation normal”.
“As the Prime Minister and Treasurer indicated over the last several weeks, we were watching this closely,” he said.
“We just think we’ve got to get back to a situation normal at some point, and we’ve decided to continue with our original plan to do that this weekend.”
Mr Butler acknowledged prices had already jumped in recent weeks off the back of renewed fighting between the United States and Iran, against which Washington and Israel launched a surprise attack on February 28.
That increase was “not because of any decision government has taken, but because of the turmoil in the Middle East,” Mr Butler said.
“It just goes to reaffirm that we’re all paying the price for this war, which can’t end soon enough.”
Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan also voiced hope for “a resolution to the war”.
“It’s given enough time now for us to be able to get our fuel supplies in order,” he told News24.
Mr Tehan said he wanted the government to focus on “reducing spending and cutting the cost to people of living at the moment”.
“Because that is the big issue, and if they can do that and focus on that, that’ll enable people to be able to deal with what is likely to be an increase as this excise relief comes off,” he said.
As of July 26, the average petrol retail price sat at 182.3 cents per litre, an amount which is likely to increase as the change filters down the supply chain.
The heavy vehicle road user charge rate will also return to its normal rate of 32.4 cents per litre from Monday, after it was cut to 16.4 cents per litre for liquid fuels, such as diesel.
Extracted in full from: https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/on-the-road/fuel-prices-likely-to-creep-up-as-excise-cut-comes-off-at-midnight-health-minister-says/news-story/12643fac6db0298952cd30059ee2ba6e
