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- Consumer affairs
This was published 8 years ago
Motorists are getting pumped on petrol prices: ACCC
By Marc Moncrief
Petrol is not as cheap as it should be, and the government's consumer watchdog is worried that customers are being gouged.
In a tersely-worded update on petrol prices across the country, the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, noted significant increases in the past six months in the margin between what retailers pay for petrol and what they charge at the pump. The price paid by motorists was, on average, 11.8 cents per litre more than the wholesale price of petrol - the largest such margin recorded by the ACCC since it began keeping records in 2002.
Mr Sims said the regulator would be "closely monitoring" such margins in the months to come "because high retail margins likely indicate increased profits of the petrol companies at the expense of motorists".
Bowser prices in Australia's five largest cities fell 2.6 cents per litre in the three months to the end of September, but the fall masks an increase in the money that flows through to petrol companies' profits.
The average wholesale price of petrol fell by more - about 4 cents - during the period, so retailers were able to pocket an extra 1.3 cents for every litre of petrol pumped.
The average price of petrol across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth was 133.2 cents per litre during the period, with the highest margins in Sydney and Brisbane. In those cities, the average bowser price was about 14 cents higher than wholesale, compared to a margin of 8.3 cents a litre in Melbourne. Perth motorists saw the margin lift to 12.3 cents per litre up from just 9 cents the previous quarter.
In the period of the report, massive jumps to record high margins were noted in Sydney and Adelaide, while other cities merely extended significant jumps from the previous quarter.
The wholesale price of petrol fell by 6.2 per cent over the period in the report. Since June last year it has fallen by 19 per cent. Over the same period, the weekly average petrol price has fallen about 14 per cent.