HOST:
One of the other things that’s happening around the place today is the Federal Government is helping us, or talking about helping us, or going to help us, find cheaper petrol in the sense that sometimes I don’t know whether you’ve been confused by some of the boards you see outside petrol stations. I know that one of the things I’ve noticed around the place is that they tend to advertise the cheapest price they’ve got which is usually the discounted price which you may not be entitled to and it drives you mad when you go in there and you’re not.
David Bradbury is the Assistant Treasurer, he’s the Minister Assisting for Deregulation and he joins me this morning. G’day David.
BRADBURY:
Good morning Chris, how are you.
HOST:
Yeah, good. This is a major frustration for lots of people and it’s good to see that your close to doing something about it.
BRADBURY:
Well thanks for that feedback and certainly this is acting upon some representations that we’ve been receiving from individual consumers but also from the motoring bodies. I know the Australian Automobile Association, along with groups like the NRMA, have been pushing for this for some time. And I think the important thing that we think needs to be addressed is not just to do this in a piecemeal way but we want to make sure that it’s done with a national approach and that’s why we’ve decided to show some leadership on the issue.
HOST:
Let’s start with the problem and is it simply that if there’s a chance to put up two prices and one of them is cheapest, or cheaper, that many servos will go that way?
BRADBURY:
I think the issue has become, particularly around some of the discounting arrangements, that you have these very prominent price displays in relation to the discounted price and then you pull over, if you don’t have the dockets or you’re not part of the discount arrangements, you get there and you get to the bowser and you realise that it’s four cents or in some cases more than that –
HOST:
If you look.
BRADBURY:
If you look. And that’s something worth doing. We had a bit of a discussion in our office about this and after we had that discussion everybody came back and reported that this is something that had been happening to them without them necessarily even realising. I think it’s really important, from a consumer protection perspective that people have access to the right price, if that’s the basis upon which they’ve decided to pull over to this service station rather than the one they just drove past, then let’s make sure it’s based upon the true price.
HOST:
Now how will you do this?
BRADBURY:
We think it’s important to have a national approach. At the moment we have a national consumer law but if we want to make any changes to that, the most appropriate way, we think would be an information standard, but we would need to work with the States and Territories to get agreement on exactly how that would operate.
I think it’s important to do that, because there’s no point in having different arrangements in different States and Territories.
HOST:
Could we see this, perhaps, as the thin edge of the wedge in terms of having a look at the overall operation of the retailing, or wholesaling and retailing I suppose, of petrol in Australia?
BRADBURY:
A couple of things I’d make really clear. The first one is in terms retailing of petrol generally, the ACCC has already indicated it’s having a very close look at the petrol market, but can I say more specifically in relation to this, we’re not holding this out as a measure that we say is going to drive prices down. There are a whole range of things happening in [inaudible] markets separate to this. We really see this as a consumer protection issue. In the end, if people are making choices about which service station they go to based upon misleading information, then let’s address that, let’s deal with and let’s make sure we have a better sense of competition amongst the retailers so you actually know what you’re getting.
HOST:
Do you think there needs to be some controls over the relationship between petrol – well I shouldn’t even say that because they are owned by the big two – but I think there should be some close look at the way discounting is used in a retailing sense by Coles and Woolies, I’m talking about, in the sense that, you know, sometimes discounts look attractive but you actually pay more in the supermarket to get them, if you know what I mean.
BRADBURY:
And these are certainly matters that I know will be the subject of ongoing investigation by the ACCC and they’ve come out and they’ve said we are specifically looking at what’s going on here in petrol and I think it’s appropriate to let them, under the leadership of the chairman Rod Sims, to progress their investigations and we will certainly be following the progress of those investigations closely.
HOST:
It’s interesting to me because anecdotally you hear the stories and we hear them on this program and programs like it all the time, that there are connections between the retailing of everything in supermarkets and the retailing of petrol. That’d be fascinating to see someone from the ACCC have a close look at that.
BRADBURY:
They’ll be guided by, ultimately, what is in the best interests of consumers and for a competitive market, but the concern that many people would have is sometimes something might look like a cheap price on a particular item but what does that mean in terms of the overall impact on the basket of goods they might be purchasing.
HOST:
Yeah, okay, fair enough, good place to start. Good to talk to you David.
BRADBURY:
Great to talk to you too.