RAA plan for live petrol pricing, to cut fuel costs, rejected by State Government
EXCLUSIVE: The State Government has refused to back funding for live petrol pricing despite their own experts saying it drives down bowser prices for motorists through “greater competition”.
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THE State Government has refused to back funding for live petrol pricing despite their own experts saying it drives down bowser prices for motorists through “greater competition”.
While the Government maintains a “wait and see” position on fuel-price monitoring, the RAA says the indecision is proving costly to drivers.
The SA motoring body said the system, in which a website lists the most up-to-date fuel prices at individual outlets, had been adopted with great success in NSW as rivals strove to be more competitive.
RAA senior manager Mark Borlace welcomed the results of a Freedom of Information investigation by The Advertiser which revealed the Office of Consumer and Business Affairs had briefed Attorney-General John Rau that giving motorists access to real-time data did push down prices.
In a briefing note last year explaining the benefits of the system, the consumer body stated: “While not all petrol outlets are covered in the fuel price search sites of apps in states with voluntary price reporting, there appears to be sufficient (information) to provide competitive pressure on prices’’.
But it concluded that relying on the interest of app developers, rather than legislation forcing price disclosure by stations, was the best way forward.
Mr Borlace said: “This briefing shows that if volunteered price information provides downward pressure on prices, then compulsory information and more accurate information will provide more pressure. Price information for motorists pushes down prices.’’
He said the Government had hoped last year that the market would be flooded with app developers “and that has not happened”.
“There is no one way to access all the data, other than the Government acting,’’ he said.
Unlike other cities, many Adelaide petrol stations do not provide their prices for use on comparative websites and for those that do, the price is only displayed in 5c bands.
The Northern Territory Government is adopting the NSW system and in Queensland, motorists are told the real-time “fair price” in their area.
Mr Borlace said the ideal system to adopt in SA was the one from NSW, because it was a government-backed complete picture of exact real-time prices, not the voluntary price bands currently available here.
He said major petrol retailers had already developed the software to inform the NSW Government when prices changed, and that could be copied in SA.
“We are going to keep up the pressure for the NSW model, and the NT Government is also copying that,’’ Mr Borlace said. “We again wrote to Mr Rau recently when the NT took up the NSW idea, which cost NSW much less than $500,000 and the NT $250,000.
“They really need to consider this.”
Mr Rau maintained the Government position yesterday that it would not act because there was no “market failure”.
“The Government has previously indicated it is willing to reconsider some other form of disclosure scheme if there is evidence of a substantial market failure,” he said.
Last Friday, a Caltex strategy to spike prices by 29c per litre was quickly copied by On The Run and Woolworths outlets across Adelaide.
A similar attempt to spike prices in Sydney failed because there are many more providers and real-time pricing information to highlight the lowest price.