18th Jun 2008, 11:35 AM – Senate National Fuelwatch (Empowering Consumers) Bill 2008 — Referral to Committees — Refer to Economics Committee

This division relates to the Policy For increasing consumer protections.

The majority voted in favour of a motion that proposed reference No. 6 be agreed to, which means that the two bills will now be sent to the Economics Committee for them to inquire and report on them.

Background to the bills

This National Fuelwatch (Empowering Consumers) Bill 2008 was introduced along with the National Fuelwatch (Empowering Consumers) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 to establish a National Fuelwatch Scheme, which would be created and administered by by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).(Read more about the Scheme on ABC News here. ) The National Fuelwatch Scheme would require petrol retailers "to notify the ACCC of their next day’s fuel prices by 2 pm each day and maintain this notified price for a 24-hour period from 6 am the next day".(Read more about the bill, including its explanatory memorandum, here. )

The National Fuelwatch Scheme was proposed in response to an ACCC inquiry into the price of unleaded petrol, which found that:

• there is an imbalance in fuel pricing information between petrol retailers and consumers at the retail level; and
• consumers' capacity to take advantage of the lowest prices is limited by intraday fuel price changes (sometimes as often as three or four times per day).(Read more about the ACCC's inquiry in the explanatory memorandum.)