LETTER: Time for royal commission into fuel prices

IF IT'S good enough for banking to face a Royal Commission then its time for those running the petrol industry to suffer the same scrutiny.

A letter writer says there needs to be a royal commission into fuel prices. Picture: Mike Knott BUN100418FUEL4

Fuel price a rort

IF IT'S good enough for those running the banking and superannuation industries to face a Royal Commission then its time for those running the petrol industry to suffer the same scrutiny.

For years the oil industry has played fast and loose with the hip pockets of Australian motorists, hiking up the price whenever it felt the need to generate extra profits and collect handsome bonuses for the executives.

The same swindle the banks use on their customers.

No administration or government department has ever attempted to stop the blatant rorting of petrol prices in this country. This is despite the Rudd-Gillard government deceptively appointing a Petrol Pricing Commissioner in 2008.

This was just a stunt to give a highly paid job to a political mate. A job for one of the boys as payment for past favours.

In the time this commissioner was operating, not one action was brought against the oil giants. In fact, the commissioner admitted on national television that his job was just to keep an eye on the bowser price of petrol and put it on a website. He had no other authority beyond that and collected a fat pay cheque for doing nothing.

The Turnbull government won't tackle the oil cartels either. Oil companies make huge contributions to the LNP's electoral funding. And it is this lack of consumer protection that has put the government way behind in the polls.

The Banking Royal Commission won't save them because they fought tooth and nail to avoid it and now refuse to jail the con artists that have robbed the Australian public for years.

They may claw back some lost support if they come down hard on the blatant profiteering by the oil companies.

But no government will survive the public backlash if they continue to operate under the Forrest Gump philosophy of "stupid is as stupid does".

B. BARRY

Bundaberg

Guilt misplaced

A WRITER (NM, 12/03) speaks about this country of having been invaded 200 years ago.

This is a large island country that sooner or later would have been invaded.

I came here as a child from a land that had been occupied by a super regime whose standard was to exterminate those that they saw as inferior.

They took all able-bodied young man from my country to build war machines.

They took all the food my area was growing, to the point my family was brought close to starvation and I spent weeks in hospital to just survive.

Some of my Jewish childhood friends and their families were never seen again.

My fears from that time still run deep.

We had to jump to attention and salute Heil Hitler or our parents would be shot if we did not do it the right way.

I still cannot hear war sirens, or old war planes overhead, without wanting to crawl under a desk.

All countries in the world at some time or other have been invaded. Some peacefully and some by super powers.

Some have become enriched by these events and others have suffered.

I was an unwilling emigrant child and grieved for the entire journey the loss of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and language.

But I fell in love with this beautiful country as we sailed into Sydney Harbour on May 3, 1951, and eventually became a hard-working grateful, respectful to the original owners, naturalised Australian.

I have travelled alone throughout this country for many years and have stood at the base of Uluru and realised that tears were streaming down my cheeks.

For being at the heart of the country that I had given my heart to, and I feel that I too have a special connection to this country.

I walked gently around her and felt deeply the spirit of this very special place and truly feel that I am an Australian.

Now many years later I have done my share of fighting to protect its beauty. I never did take part of the atrocities inflicted 200 years ago any more than I was part of those who inflicted atrocities in my birth country 70 years ago.

The letter writer's name would suggest that he too is of European descent, so did he or his family invade this country, or did he like many of us as unwilling child emigrants arrive here and become part of it?

Do all of us have to bear the guilt for what happened 200 years ago? When will this finally end?

The word sorry has been expressed, the atrocities acknowledged, what was done was not right, but we are a different generation now.

It's entirely impractical for all those of European descent to leave this country and leave it as it once was.

So, can we all please forgive and live in harmony no matter where our origins.

The words of that lovely song that I can never sing without crying says: "We are one and we are many, and from all the lands on Earth we come, and sing with one voice, I am, you are, we are Australian."

And proud of it.

MARY VAN DIJK-ARGALL

Bargara

Originally published as LETTER: Time for royal commission into fuel prices