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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
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Bills

Fair Trading (Fuel Pricing Information) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The ACTING SPEAKER (Dr Harvey): The member for Hammond.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:50): Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. What a fine job, and how good you look in that role today, sir. I rise to continue some comments in regard to the Fair Trading (Fuel Pricing Information) Amendment Bill. At the conclusion of my remarks just before the lunch break, I was talking about the ownership of service stations and how there are some quite large companies involved, with Woolworths involved with Caltex, Coles involved with Shell service stations and, obviously, we have the On The Run group here in South Australia.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Dr Harvey): Member for Hammond, there is a point of order. The member for West Torrens.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Sir, the Attorney-General read from a state document in her grievance debate. I ask that it be tabled.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I note the member's request for the provision of the copy of the email. I am happy to oblige him. I want to make it absolutely clear what has been received. I will just find it again in my folder, but I undertake that provision.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Dr Harvey): The member for Hammond.

Mr PEDERICK: I was talking about the ownership of fuel companies in this state. There are not too many independents left. I noted the On The Run network, which is a network of essentially BP outlets throughout this state.

I note the forefather of Peregrine On The Run was Fred Shahin, the father of Sam Shahin and his brothers Charlie and Yasser. He came out here from the Middle East in 1984 and started with one service station. I think it is another one of those success stories of a migrant coming to the state and working hard and the family subsequently working hard and doing extremely well. Now, with at least 130 sites, I think they have somewhere around 4,000 employees, so they are significant economic contributors to this state.

What I also want to acknowledge, because I think it is important in this debate, is that we have had investment from bigger companies, obviously the bigger fuel companies, in the past. This is a company that has invested in fuel in this state and its service stations have made a massive investment in my electorate, at The Bend Motorsport Park, of at least $160 million. I think Sam Shahin is probably resigned to the fact that some of that he will never see again. It is good that he is dedicated to his sport, driving his Porsche around the track.

It is so great to see that massive investment just outside Tailem Bend. I note that the new dragstrip is being built there as we speak, and it will be fantastic not just for the locals but for people to get out there from Adelaide. It is only an hour from the edge of the city, and it is fantastic entertainment and in exactly the right place. I also note the recent investment at the Mallala track in recent times. What I am saying is that there are some people who have made significant investments, many and varied, in this state in regard to service stations. I acknowledge all of those investments.

I also want to acknowledge another thing, and I know that it is talked about widely in this debate, and that is the price of fuel. I certainly believe that the price of fuel not just here, because we work on world parity pricing, would be a lot more if we did not have fracture stimulation around the world. As I have said to this house before, I was involved with it in the early eighties. For 12 months I did low volume fracture stimulation with Gearhart Australia. High volume fracturing in the US has pretty well made the United States self sustaining in oil and gas.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Energy independence.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, energy independence. As we know, fuel is dear enough. We have had many conversations in this house around fracture stimulation and access to fuel, but the simple fact is that we are going to need oil and gas for a long time yet. I appreciate that things are moving forward in relation to electric cars, but they still need their power generated from somewhere.

We have a vast range of power generation, whether it is solar, wind or gas, and we are still linked in to coal obviously in the network through the interconnector. We are going to build—and I am sure it will get through all the regulatory approvals—the interconnector through to New South Wales, which will link our renewables, our solar and our wind, through to coal in the Eastern States.

I want to make the point that we will be reliant on petrol, oil, gas and diesel for a long time yet. It has always intrigued me how diesel can be—I do not know, I will throw a number out—20 or 30¢ a litre dearer than unleaded. What is that all about? Why I ask that question so much is that obviously it gets cleaned up in refineries to a reasonable state but it is far less refined than any unleaded petrol.

Part of my work was in the oilfield all those years ago at East Mereenie field, a few hundred kilometres outside Alice Springs. To get access to fuel they had a light crude well and all they had on the surface was a separator to drain the water out. We ran that light crude oil straight into our diesel vehicles. They ran a bit lumpy, but it was good enough.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: That's right. I saw it myself.

Mr PEDERICK: Absolutely. It was certainly good enough for the long haul trucks, the rig trucks and certainly for our Toyotas, or what we called them in the field, as the Minister for Primary Industries would know from his time in the gas fields, whoopies. Mainly, it was Toyotas that would run on this light crude oil, which essentially comes out of the ground and you just separate a bit of water off and away you go.

It has always intrigued me that the price of diesel can be so much more than the price of unleaded. I believe that there are a lot more diesel vehicles on the road now than in times gone by and it is a very good fuel, but it just shows where there is a need. Certainly, there was no need at the time because the fuel was good enough for diesel vehicles to cart fuel. It was very energy efficient to cart fuel those 200 or 300 kilometres out to the oilfield and have all that cost and impact on the companies. It is a big tale, the price of fuel.

The measure we are taking involves several apps, depending on whichever app you are keen on. As I said, I will probably rely on my two young boys to download it for me and make sure I have everything on spec and ready to roll.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: You got them dinner last night.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, I did get them dinner last night. We can get this online so that we can save costs for South Australians and move forward with real-time pricing and distinctly heavy penalties if people do not comply. I commend the bill.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Frome) (16:00): I also would like to contribute to this bill. I would sincerely like to express my great thanks to and admiration for the member for Florey for the great work that she has done since the last election on this issue of fuel price transparency. I have been working with the member. The more we investigate this issue, the more it appears that the major retailers have taken the general public for granted. I have had numerous discussions with the RAA regarding this issue and commend them for their continued campaign. It has been going on for many years, and they have been asking lots of questions.

It intrigues me to see many service stations change their prices, in some cases more than once a day. As the member for West Torrens pointed out yesterday, as a state we are dependent on fuel imports. The member for Hammond also mentioned the issue of reliance on overseas oil and how we should be looking at more of what we have within Australia and South Australia in particular. We no longer have the Mobil refinery at Port Stanvac, which was closed several years ago, so all the state's fuel requirements are imported and, as I understand it, through a single distribution point at Outer Harbor.

From there, again to my knowledge, it is distributed to the various operators across the state. These operators consist of several oil company brands, mostly major global operators with only a few of the smaller brands, including a couple of independents. From my memory, when a shipment is received into the storage facility at Outer Harbor, all excise and government taxes are paid at the time of the shipment being received. Wholesale landed prices are then calculated on the price of the crude oil barrels at the time of the shipment being loaded at the destination. This forms part of the calculation of the wholesale price, established at the distribution point for South Australian retailers and commercial users.

From there, each distributor is then charged the same wholesale price—well, that is the theory. But this question needs to be clarified: do all retailers get the opportunity to purchase at the same wholesale price, or do the larger operators get a better deal because of their volumes? If so, they should be able to offer lower retail prices. This is one of the reasons why I support the member for Florey's amendments based on the Western Australian model because, unlike the government's bill, they apply to wholesalers as well as retailers.

That is the degree of transparency we need to see in the fuel marketplace in our state. It begs the question: how fair is the competition for the smaller service station operators to compete and continue in this field? I drive to Adelaide for parliamentary work and am astounded at the price volatility and variability during my three-hour drive. Sometimes there are price changes, even by service stations with the same owners that are in close proximity, more than once in a single day.

As you come through Port Wakefield, there are three roadhouses that most people know, whether travelling north or south. Out of those three roadhouses, two always have the same price. The other one, which is an independent, United, is always 10¢ to 15¢ or sometimes 20¢ per litre cheaper. You have to ask: how can a small operator the same distance from the supply point still have a cheaper price? I come to Adelaide in the morning, and then on the way back I see the petrol prices at particular service stations have significantly increased from when I travelled that morning.

Did all these sites receive a new tanker of fuel that day? Has there really been a significant change in their underlying costs? What really justifies this kind of price change, or is it just market manipulation? A good question. Surely, if pump prices increase, it should be in response to change costs. That is, when the last delivery is fully used and the site has received a new load of fuel by a road tanker, then the new price should come into effect.

This brings me to another question. When these new loads come from the distribution point at Outer Harbor, is the fuel coming from the same international shipment? That is, is it all coming in from the same location? What price was the global crude oil price per barrel at the time when that shipment was loaded overseas? Bear in mind, I understand our wholesale prices are based on the Singaporean crude oil price and, as mentioned by the member for Florey, the crude oil price recently was at a 17-year low. It begs the question yet again: why do retail fuel prices fluctuate so frequently? Indeed, as mentioned by the member for West Torrens yesterday, the crude oil price was at one stage in the negative.

Ms Bedford: Spectacular speech.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: It was a great speech.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: I was inspired by the member for Florey. You're my muse.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: I will start again. Indeed, as mentioned by the member for West Torrens yesterday, the crude oil price at one stage was in the negative. From memory, it was minus $37 per barrel, meaning that producers were paying for people to store their crude oil at that particular period of time. Recently, we have seen retail prices get as low as, I think, 70¢ per litre in Adelaide.

Ms Bedford: 73.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: Okay, corrected. The member for Florey says 73. But it was only momentary and the average price has remained, to my knowledge, at about $1.08 per litre for the last 45 days. Of course, there are costs that have to be factored in, including commonwealth government excise of 42.3¢ per litre, shipment costs for import to South Australia, retailers' profit margins, road freight costs to regional locations across the state, plus their profit margin.

The member for Florey mentioned that in April CommSec found that the retail margins were at a record high of 22.7¢ per litre. I have found a later report in May that retail profit margins are now even higher than this. It is now at 24.6¢ per litre—a record high profit margin. That is around double the two-year average. I note a report by the ABC's Philip Lasker and Michael Janda of 5 May, as follows:

Petrol has not been this cheap since 2004, but many motorists watching the global price of oil plunge feel like it should be lower still.

Figures from the Australian Institute of Petroleum, quoted by CommSec, show that the national average price of unleaded petrol last week fell to 98.3¢ per litre.

Metropolitan prices fell to an average of 94.9¢, while regional prices dropped to 105.1¢ per litre.

But wholesale prices have been dropping even more into the low 80s—the lowest levels in around two decades.

That means the retail petrol margin—the difference between what the retailer pays for fuel and the pump price the motorist pays—is now at a record 24.6¢, according to CommSec.

The article is very informative and goes on to comment on the high prices being experienced in various eastern seabord capitals, including Brisbane and Sydney, both of which have Fuel Check-style price monitoring schemes which the government proposes in this bill. In Brisbane and Sydney, prices were hitting $1.20 per litre on the long weekend. The article goes on to state:

Mr Felsman noted the particularly extreme example of Adelaide, where prices surged 33 cents in a matter of days last week, before easing back somewhat.

Mr Felsman is CommSec's senior economist. Further on, the article refers to Mr Geoff Trotter who operates the petrol price monitoring company FuelTrac. Mr Trotter believes motorists in Australia are being uniquely gouged by fuel companies. He says:

The difference in some capital cities between petrol stations relates to where they are in the pricing cycle.

It's helped oil companies achieve a higher margin than they otherwise would have achieved.

The price cycle is unique to the Australian petrol market. It doesn't exist in any other market that I've ever seen.

It's fake to the extent that the increases don't bear any relationship to any change in the underlying wholesale price.

I consider anything above 99 cents a litre over the top in terms of profit margin and anything below 99 cents would be a fair price for the oil company, for the dealer and certainly for the motorist.

Regarding the unique Australian petrol market, I certain do not see supermarkets putting up their prices and dropping them down on a daily basis. They are set. Petrol comes in at a set price; therefore, the profit margin should be realistic. In my area within Upper Spencer Gulf, prices have only gone below $1 per litre on a couple of occasions, unlike in Adelaide, where it has been below $1 per litre on many occasions. Even so, the 45-day average price for Adelaide prices is still $1.08, which is well above where it should be were the market not dominated by the major retailers.

I know that there has to be a freight cost of getting to regional locations, but this increase in costs compared with Adelaide prices is hurting not only the general public but also our regional business operators, who in many cases need to get their raw products from Adelaide and transport them to their facility, manufacture their products and then transport their product back to Adelaide for distribution to the larger market in Adelaide or interstate. In many cases, it could be far more economical and competitive for them to relocate to Adelaide or interstate if they want to achieve far better profitability. They elect to stay in the regions because they want to create work within the regions and they understand the value of the regions.

Many years ago, there was a fuel equalisation scheme which established regional zones in an attempt to minimise the difference in fuel costs between the country and the city. By stabilising metropolitan prices, we can also stabilise regional prices. This will allow far more opportunities to establish businesses in regional South Australia and in turn diversify the spread of the population instead of concentrating in the Adelaide metropolitan areas. That is why I will be moving amendments to this bill during the committee stage.

Even though the regions may not have a large share of the population, we need to remember from where the majority of the funds or royalties comes into the government coffers: the regions. Upper Spencer Gulf and the northern section of the state are not only going to be tremendous contributors to royalties for resources and minerals, but very importantly, to renewable energy for the state and future growth. I commend this bill to the house.

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE (Chaffey—Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) (16:12): I, too, rise to speak on the Fair Trading (Fuel Pricing Information) Amendment Bill. Many members in their contributions talked about their concerns about the price of fuel. Over the course of my life, there has always been a focus on the cost of fuel. Really, at the end of the day, it was about the monthly fuel bill.

Living in the regions, the majority of people I associate with have multiple vehicles, and that means multiple pain when you go to the bowser. If you have to go to your farm bowser, which has had fuel dropped off at a nominal price, every vehicle that you have—especially if you have multiple vehicles—continues to put a drain on your bottom line.

If you reflect on people in regional South Australia, the majority of families each have a vehicle. There is a need for independence, and in most cases, a significant amount of distance needs to be travelled. If you are living on farm or out of town, we know that comes with a burden. In many cases, we do not have public transport. A lot of regional centres do not have taxis or Ubers and so we have to gear up to use high levels of fuel.

If you live in an electorate such as Chaffey, everyone has one or more boats in their driveway or shed. They also have multiple motorbikes. They have multiple pieces of machinery that chew fuel at every step of the way. We have to remember, too, that those primary producers, by and large, nowadays have equipment, tools and all sorts of implements that, if not fuel driven, would be assisted by a vehicle that would generate power through a PDO that would require fuel to drive those pieces of machinery.

On top of that, we travel a lot of long distances. As a regional MP and now with the privilege of being a minister, I cover a minimum of about 100,000 kilometres a year. With that comes the burden of the cost of fuel and over time it is having an impact. On reflection, as a young fellow I remember way back working at the local service station after school. I remember putting fuel into vehicles at 10¢ a litre. That might give some sort of disclosure as to my age, but it gives me the opportunity to reflect that we have come a long way.

The cost of fuel is driven, in some instances, by the cost of production, but the majority of it is about the large corporations that continue to drive the numbers in relation to the price of fuel. If we look around, particularly in the regions, the price of fuel, as a number of members have said, is 20¢ to 30¢ a litre dearer; occasionally it is around parity with what we find in the city.

One thing that has raised my eyebrows, particularly due to the experience with COVID-19, is that we have seen a significant decline in the amount of fuel that the service stations are selling. That means the big end of town, the big fuel companies, are hurting because they do not have the turnover and yet we saw the price go through the floor. We saw diesel go from around $1.30 or $1.40 a litre down to well under $1.00 and in some cases down to 80¢ a litre. Here in Adelaide I saw some service stations with unleaded as low as 65¢ a litre.

The math does not add up. Normally when there is a reduction in sales that means that the price goes up to cover all the ongoing or fixed costs with the running of an operation, the running of a service station, the running of the logistics to get the fuel to the service station, the processing and the distribution costs. Those numbers really do defy the odds as to why we see the large fluctuations in the cost of fuel.

As a young fellow, you never really think about having to buy a fuel-efficient car. I remember way back in the early days as an apprentice filling up my EH Holden, which was an HP EH Holden I might add, a Bathurst version. It had a 179 with a high compression head with twin strombergs and headers, which meant that it used more fuel. Back then it was more about pride of place and making sure you had the fastest car, and it did not matter what the cost of fuel was as long as you got there first. A lot of my friends, my mates and my car racing colleagues had Torana XU1s, Monaros and we had all sorts.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: The XU1 was a great car.

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE: Great car. It is one of the most underestimated cars. The GTR XU1, a little six cylinder with triple strombergs, goes to Bathurst and kills the giant-killer, the GT phase 3. Henry Ford would never have guessed that that would be the case. They are the legacies these big fuel-guzzling, heavy steel bumper-barred cars left and still have today. They are fetching mammoth prices, because they are some of the great pride of Australian history, particularly in the car or motor manufacturing industry.

Again, we look forward. Particularly in my chosen sport of waterski racing, we look at the cost of fuel, we look at the type of fuels and putting large drums of fuel into boats that are generating between 1,650 and 1,700 horse power. Yes, they consume a lot of fuel, but at the same time that was part of the chosen sport that I used to compete in.

It just typifies the reliance that we have on fuel, whether it is a pastime, whether it is work, whether it is an occupation, whether it is the high consumption of living in a regional centre and how reliant we are, particularly on farm. As I said, being isolated tends to make you more reliant on fuel. Having machinery, implements or any maintenance-type programs on farm you become very, very reliant, whether it is diesel or whether it is any fuel products and the oils that come with it. Putting large amounts of hours into this machinery again requires significant amounts of fossil fuel inputs, and that comes at great cost.

Again, this fuel app, I think, will help—whether it helps the bottom line, whether it helps the hip pocket, or whether it just satisfies curiosity, I think will be determined along the way. Before I go on, I just want to pick up what the member for Hammond said about his experience in the oil industry, or the oil and gas sector, and when he worked up in the Cooper Basin.

I worked up there as a project manager and I, too, saw a significant amount of capacity for, well, I would not call it crude, I would call it condensate up there. The quality of condensate in our aquifers deep under is somewhat puke. I would call it at best clear green when you compare it with some of the great condensates and crude oils in the northern hemisphere, which is dark, black treacle and which tends to make a much better product, and you receive much more of the higher value return in some of those condensate.

We talked about a barrel of oil. That is about 35 gallons in old-fashioned terms—about 160 litres. That is what we talk about in today's terms. When we talk about the price of crude oil, it comes in a barrel and it normally comes in that quantity. At one point in time we were installing the bean pumps, and for those of you who have been up through some of the oil fields, whether it is here in the Cooper Basin or somewhere else across the globe, you would see those knocking magpies, as you would call them.

What we used to do is that we would put the condensate straight into the tanks and it would run these bean pumps that would suck oil out of the ground and then pump it to tanks. It would then on-go to the processing plant at Moomba central, and then most of it would be pumped down to Port Bonython where it would be put into ships and shipped away.

I guess that does allow me to reflect on just the enormity of the oil and gas sector. The cost of the exploration is the big cost. It is not expensive by any stretch of the imagination to extract. Once you have done the exploration into the down hole and found it and got positive pressure, or if you have had to suck it out, it normally becomes an unviable well. Again, I do understand the complexities of sucking out fossil fuels out of our underground aquifers, and what it means to an economy.

I think the transparency really is more important and particularly, as I have said, coming back to the regions in South Australia. The regional centres are at a disadvantage. They do not have the competition but they do have the capacity. A primary producer gets the diesel fuel rebate and that does help. That takes a lot of pressure off the cost of running a farm or running a lot of equipment. As the Deputy Speaker would know only too well, there are a number of vehicles that you need to have. Whether you are running livestock, planting crops or harvesting crops, maintaining crops or maintaining your equipment, it all seems to come back to the amount of fuel that you use.

Again, the information and the transparency are key to the success of this app. It gives us the ability to be satisfied when we are looking to fill up our tank. We can go to the app and note whether it is around the corner in the next town and actually have the capacity to buy larger stores of fuel for on-farm storage. That is the way regional people live their lives, particularly those heavily reliant on fuel.

We have to acknowledge that people living in the regions have to travel longer distances to socialise, to go to work or just in they way they live their lives. Everything is at a much further distance away and, again, to achieve those distances there are more inputs into your vehicle—and that is primarily fuel. The more you travel the more fuel you need, and the more you travel the more you get to achieve.

There are other disadvantages living in some of our regions and one is that the majority of us do not have public transport. Most people who live in the city take for granted that they have public transport—buses, trains, trams, taxis, Ubers—at their disposal. If you live in the regions—in some cases somewhat more isolated areas—you have to rely on putting more fuel into your tank to get to where you have to go. Whether it is visiting or for work, it costs more to do that same operation than it would normally in the cities.

I guess the discount is always a problem. I have made it very clear to my children because all three of them drive vehicles. They are very watchful and understand the cycle—what day is the best day to fill up with fuel—and make sure that they get the best deal possible so that they can capitalise on the high cost of filling up a car with fuel and then, of course, doing plenty of kilometres. My constituents have identified the discrepancies where we have one town that could be 10¢ a litre dearer. Some people are driving 15 or 20 kilometres to fill up their vehicles at 10¢ a litre cheaper—and good on them because that is, I would say, the sort of desperation that they use in order to save a dollar or two, particularly when filling up.

People need to understand that the cost of fuel is a large input to any primary sector. It is a large input to any regional person. It is a larger input to any people living in an isolated situation. I think we need to acknowledge that, and that is why the fuel price app will improve the information available and it will give consumers a choice. That is really what it is about: giving consumers the choice to fill up at the servo that is five kilometres up the road or a servo that is 25 kilometres up the road. It gives country motorists the ability to compare prices and then make their choice.

It is inevitable that in the coming decades we will see somewhat less reliance on fossil fuels and more reliance on other forms of fuel, whether it be electric vehicles, whether it be hydrogen or whether it be something very new that is not before us at the moment. I think it is important that we deal with the capacity that we deal in today. We know that electric vehicles are not proving successful in the primary sector, if we are talking heavy vehicles. trucks and tractors. There are prototypes out there but, particularly with the heavy workloads or the loads that are put on those engines, they consume very quickly, whether it is electricity, whether it is diesel or whether it is gas.

What we are seeing at the moment is that there has been probably 50 years of development, and there will be another 50 years of development to see a new world that we live in. I see fossil fuels still being a part of our life for the next two, three, four, five decades but to a diminished amount. I think that is a good thing. It is advancement and it is also dealing with our contribution to CO2 emissions. I will take this opportunity to be very proud to say that, as a government, we have given our farmers the choice of GM technologies.

That is not just about the seed that we plant. It is not just about the food that we eat. It is about reducing the chemicals that we put in to the atmosphere and it is about reducing the CO2emissions because we have fewer tractor hours that we will be using on-farm because we will not be out there putting chemicals on plants and we will not be out there continuing to spray herbicides on weeds. We will be out there being a part of saving those emissions that go into our environment.

We know the primary sector that grows our food do have to put large amounts of inputs into their business operation. It is a little bit like the CO2 emissions that we are looking at at the moment to reduce cows putting CO2 emissions into the environment; they burp and they fart, and they are large emitters. Some of the technologies that we will put in train now will be—

Ms Bedford: Can you fix those prices?

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE: —yes—about reducing emissions. Having a good fuel app is about getting cheaper fuel. It is about saving money. It is about making sure that you do the best with what you have. We are going to use our devices for a whole lot more as life progresses, and a fuel app is just one of those. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (16:32): I rise to speak on this very important piece of legislation that is vitally important for people who live in my electorate in the southern suburbs. In the electorate of Kaurna, in areas like Seaford, Hackham or Noarlunga Downs, people are acutely aware of what the petrol price is because they need to fill up their tanks very regularly because they live 30 kilometres away from town, and many people have to drive much, much further than that to get to work.

Sadly, since the decline of manufacturing in the southern suburbs, there have been more and more people who have to travel from the southern suburbs to the outer northern suburbs to get to work, or even to the north-western suburbs out at Techport to get to work. Those people spend a lot of their time in the car. Those people spend a significant proportion of their income on petrol and on their car solely to get to work. If the government has its way, through privatisation and cuts to bus services, that is going to be an even higher percentage of people who will have to drive and pay a significant amount of money for petrol.

However, the people I represent are continually getting screwed by the oil companies, getting screwed by the system that makes it difficult for them to know when it is the right time to fill up. It makes it difficult for them to get proper competition. It makes it difficult for them to get proper information. What we want to do in this parliament is to give those people a fair go, so they have a proper choice, proper market competition, that enables them to have the choice of where they go to fill up with petrol, to have complete information. It is a part of a proper market, a perfect market, to have perfect information. Consumers do not have perfect information at the moment about when they fill up with petrol. It is a game of luck. It is a game of chance and people at the end of the day bear the brunt of that.

I would like to congratulate the member for Florey on moving her amendments and on being a tireless advocate for bringing in a proper, fair dinkum system for South Australia that is going to protect consumers and is going to give them the best available information. That is why on this side of the house we will be supporting the member for Florey's amendments to this legislation that are going to give consumers the greatest amount of information and the greatest certainty in terms of filling up their fuel tank.

Last year, I was going to the Seaford Meadows train station, as I do from time to time, to hand out some leaflets and have a chat to commuters. I believe that it was probably about the privatisation of the train services at the time. As I was driving from my house at Port Noarlunga, I heard Spence Denny on ABC radio talking about fuel prices and how there was a dramatic increase happening across the city in fuel prices that day.

One of the areas that had lower prices at that time was Seaford, so I took a picture as I was driving past some of these lower prices and sent it through to the ABC. By the time I had finished speaking to people and left, probably an hour or an hour and a half later, I went past again and the price had risen by about 30¢ a litre. This is what people are having to deal with. You want to go and fill up your tank at a cheap price. You hear about it—it might be on the radio—but by the time you get there it has skyrocketed by 30¢ a litre.

Ms Bedford: You take an hour off work.

Mr PICTON: That's right. The member for Florey says you take time off work to do it. This is not a good system, and what the government is proposing does not address the situation where people find these rapid changes in prices and are not able to appropriately plan or appropriately shop around because, by the time they get there, the price has changed. That is why we are happy to support the member for Florey's amendments, which will mean a fair dinkum system that is going to protect consumers in those sorts of situations.

A lot of people in my electorate are very grateful that we have in my electorate a decent amount of competition through the fact that we have Liberty petrol stations and Mobil petrol stations that have been providing good competition in the market. There are a lot of places where those sorts of competitions do not exist and they tend to have higher prices because of that lack of competition. What we are hoping to enable consumers to do, if they get access to a real scheme, as is in place in Western Australia, is to plan and say, 'This is where the cheapest price is available for me in my vicinity today,' and go to that, whether it is a Liberty or whether it is one of the bigger players.

Under the government's proposal, they will still be up to the chopping and changing of people. Good on them, as that is what capitalism is designed to do—people trying to make as much money as possible—but there is a significant amount of effort that those companies put in to manipulate the market and get as much money as possible out of the market. This bill is about protecting consumers, and that is why we will be supporting the amendments from the member for Florey—because we believe that they offer the greatest protection for consumers.

I understand that the scheme being promoted by the member for Florey has been in place in Western Australia for 20 years, whereas the scheme being promoted, only as a trial mind you, by the Marshall government has only been in place in Queensland for two years. It has only been in place as a trial there and they are only promoting it as a trial here. This is very different from what was promoted at the last election, when we were told that there was agreement. We had certainly promoted this. The then opposition had promoted it.

We then had two years when nothing seemed to happen on this whatsoever, and now we have come up with this scheme, which is only a trial and not actually a full scheme. We think that is disappointing. If the amendments we are supporting do not pass, we will not seek to block the bill. We will support the bill because it provides some improvement on the status quo, but it is certainly not what we think will provide the ultimate benefit for consumers.

Ultimately, if the Attorney-General is successful in getting her bill passed, those consumers will be able to judge what has been the outcome. Are they getting cheaper fuel because of that? We will certainly be talking to those consumers in terms of whether they believe the Attorney's solution here has delivered any benefits. I suspect the benefits will be very marginal for consumers. Time will tell. We will certainly be talking to people about that and holding the government accountable if there have not been benefits to people at the end of the day, particularly people in outer suburbs, such as in my electorate, or in regional areas, where a significant amount of weekly income is devoted to filling up your tank.

It is not 'fill up your tank once every few weeks or once a month': it is 'fill up your tank more than once a week' for those people who have to drive very long distances. That is why it is so important to get this legislation right. Part of the strange element we are in in terms of the COVID pandemic response around the world is that petrol prices have actually been lower during this period. I fear that is not going to last, though. We are already seeing petrol prices increasing, combined with the economic headwinds that people are facing.

We know that we have the second highest unemployment in Australia. We know that the proportion of people with jobs at the moment in South Australia is the lowest proportion it has been since September 2001. We know that women are being hit harder in terms of job losses than men. We know that we have seen over the past few months a significant number of job losses, and we know that there is significant risk to come if we see a reduction in JobKeeper or JobSeeker in their support for the community.

There will be more economic headwinds. That means that getting measures like this right is so important because people will have reduced budgets. People will be hurting economically and, if they are facing significantly higher petrol prices and an inability to properly be able to get the information they need to get a lower price, then that will hit them hard. With those words, we support what the member for Florey has been doing, her hard work on this issue and her advocacy. We hope that those amendments are successful to bring in a fair dinkum scheme to support consumers.

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