Treasurer Jim Chalmers warns motorists are ‘filthy’ about higher fuel prices

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has urged service station owners and companies failing to pass on petrol price reductions to stop treating motorists “like mugs.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned motorists are “filthy” about service station owners and companies failing to pass on petrol price reductions urging them to stop treating customers “like mugs”.

Speaking in Canberra today after the release of inflation figures confirming the biggest cost of living hike since the 1990s, Dr Chalmers said motorists were fed up.

Concerns were raised in recent weeks after the price of crude oil dropped by about 10 per cent but Australian households still faced higher fuel prices.

“Australian motorists, for good reason, get absolutely filthy about when the global price goes up, the price rise gets passed on immediately and when the global wholesale price comes down and it seems to take longer,’’ he said.

“Australians are filthy about that and they should be. Service station owners, companies, shouldn’t treat Australian motorists as mugs.

“People desperately need some relief from these cost-of-living pressures. So when the wholesale global price comes off, so should the price at the bowser.”

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Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned motorists are ‘filthy’ about service station owners. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire.

But the Treasurer said prices would rise in September when the temporary cut to fuel excise was removed.

“I said during the election campaign, before the election campaign, after the election campaign, that Australians shouldn’t expect us to be able to afford to extend that petrol price relief,’’ he said.

“I’ve tried to be up-front every single time I’ve been asked about this. The price tag attached to even a six-month extension is around $3 billion.

“And we have inherited $1 trillion of debt with not enough to show for it.

“And I don’t want to give people false hope. We’ve been saying really since the day that it was introduced … that people should expect it to end in September. I know that will be really difficult for people. I’ve thought about it and ... hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought about it.”

Concerns were raised in recent weeks after the price of crude oil dropped by around 10 per cent but Australian households still faced higher fuel prices. Picture: Brenton Edwards / NCA NewsWire

The Treasurer also said he understood the impact of interest rate rises was hurting families.

“Well, there’s a lot of commentary about people having buffers in their home loans for example, which wrongly assumes, in my view, that interest rate rises and inflation isn’t hurting people,’’ he said.

“It already is. For every dollar that people find to service their mortgages, every extra dollar, it means a dollar that can’t go to funding the skyrocketing costs of other essentials.

“A lot of people are living pay cheque to pay cheque.”

Originally published as Treasurer Jim Chalmers warns motorists are ‘filthy’ about higher fuel prices