Petrol prices

 Is the price of petrol hurting you? Take our and tell us how.. Community advocacy organisation Getup looks set to make some waves with an irreverent TV ad.The parody advertisement targets the Government’s Fuelwatch proposal, and contains repeated bleeped expletives.It depicts FuelWatch Headquarters filled with civil servants manning high-tech binoculars and reporting on tomorrow’s petrol prices today.Getup emailed the ad around Australia on Thursday morning, asking for donations online and by the end of the day had more than the 50,000 needed to buy a television spot, and was on the way to hitting the $70,000 that would extend the spot to an extra million viewers.“The spoof humorously demonstrates how the Government knows exactly where fuel prices are going – through the roof. If Mr. Rudd and Dr. Nelson are truly committed to helping average Australians, they should look beyond the bowser wowsers and their short-term petrol populism, towards long-term transport solutions,” GetUp campaigns coordinator Ed Coper says.“FuelWatch, or tinkering with the excise, is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic when Australia needs to invest billions towards better public transport and mandatory fuel efficiency standards.”“The ad cuts right though the oil slick onto the larger problem at hand -- petrol prices will keep going up regardless of what our Government does. So let us take this opportunity to invest in real solutions that address both the transport and the climate crises,” Mr Coper says.GetUp is a not-for-profit and receives no money from any political party or the government.

Sydneysiders are leading the push away from cars, with a 6 per cent increase in public transport use over the past year and a corresponding 6 per cent decrease in drivers.

The pain felt at Aussie petrol pumps looks set only to increase as world oil prices surge to record highs, reflecting global gloom at diminishing fuel stocks.

Motorists should prepare for petrol prices to remain above $1.50 a litre as the world oil price continues its climb, amid predictions they could hit $2.The average price nationally for a litre of petrol was $1.47 last week, but Asian benchmark refining prices have already moved higher since Monday, meaning motorists would soon be slugged extra at the bowser.In a grim warning to the world, Goldman Sachs said, in a note to clients that oil prices could soon reach $US200 a barrel, a price that would send Australian petrol prices to $2 a litre.BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers last night added that global oil supply would continue to be constrained because the best new deposits were nearly all located in politically sensitive countries. “I can't see any scenario where strong oil prices are not here to stay,” Mr Kloppers said.A spokesman for Caltex said there was not much Australian retail sellers of petrol could do while Singapore prices were high. Economists suggested that households needed to adjust spending patterns to cope with the higher motoring costs.Craig James of CommSec said: “The tipping point now for consumers to again adjust their behaviour is $1.50 a litre.”The rule of thumb is that for every $US 1 rise in the price of a barrel of oil, the increase at the pump is 1c a litre.The rising petrol price also adds to the inflationary woes for the Reserve Bank of Australia, particularly as the higher costs flow through to food prices. Is it getting to the point now that you are having to adjust your lifestyle to allow for increasing petrol prices?  

The announcement could be made as early as next week, according to sources within the NRMA and the Australian Automobile Association, to coincide with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's return from overseas.

One of the first tasks confronting the new federal petrol commissioner, Pat Walker - who began work yesterday - is to examine the spiralling price of diesel fuel. Diesel has jumped from $1.46 on February 17 to nearly $1.60.While it is an efficient and miserly petrol alternative, its value to motorists has been eroded by the price differential of more than 10c a litre compared with petrol.Yet diesel is cheaper to produce and there is superficially far less demand, at least among Australian drivers.What Mr Walker should establish, and quickly, is whether the causes of the rise in diesel prices are justified.Have petrol companies pushed up the price of diesel because, in effect, it is under the radar? Has the public and political focus on petrol prices allowed the incremental increase in diesel to go almost unchallenged?As always in the case of motor-fuel prices, there is no easy answer.Diesel prices have been pushed up because of the traditional winter fuel price demand of the northern hemisphere, which is now abating.Emission standards, particularly in Europe, have demanded a greater reduction in sulphur from diesel, which impacts on costs.Also, the shutdown of refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, diversion of mass refining from diesel to petrol, the growing popularity of diesel vehicles (both domestic and industrial) in Europe and Asia and increasing industrial demand from China and other emerging industrial nations have all played a role.But are they genuine reasons for the rapid rise in diesel prices - and the negative differential with petrol - or are they excuses grasped by petroleum companies to exploit an emerging sector of the motoring market?That is something Mr Walker should put high on his agenda.

Station operators say petrol prices of nearly $1.50 a litre are putting a huge strain on motorists and are leading to increased fuel theft.SA's Motor Trade Association deputy director Dennis Baldock estimated it would be costing operators as much as $7.1 million a year.“It certainly seems as the price of fuel increases the incidence of reported drive-offs increases,” he said.“I don't think it's the families doing this, I think it's the notorious offenders."“People who target certain sites, certain areas, who are up to all the tricks like dodgy number plates, stolen cars.”But he said operators were still reluctant to switch all their pumps to a pre-pay system.“It's still in use, but it's a bit off-putting for some motorists,” he said.“Motorists don't like it, so they don't particularly want to introduce it on a regular basis."“But it's a question of how much can they afford to lose - they might get to the point where it's better off losing a few customers and not having drive-offs.”In Victoria, record pump prices are being blamed for the rise of mum and dad petrol thieves, with fuel theft costing operators up to $300,000 a week.“When it first hit the $1.40-a-litre mark, we saw mums driving off with the kids in the car without paying,” Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce spokesman Terry Conroy said.He said some offenders were making a choice between paying for groceries or paying for petrol.What should be done to to stop you having to decide between groceries and petrol? Can you afford petrol these days? 

Queensland motorists are becoming more fuel miserly, buying more fuel-efficient cars, catching public transport, cycling or walking, and offsetting carbon emissions.Just as well, because the Australian Greenhouse Office estimates our cars will emit more than 40 million tonnes of carbon this year.Motorists are starting to get the message with two in five Queenslanders buying a more fuel-efficient car, according to Woolcott Research conducted for NRMA Insurance.Mature-aged women living on the Sunshine Coast are leading the charge for greener cars.Across the state, women are slightly more environmentally conscious with 42 per cent saying they had swapped to a fuel miser, compared with 38 per cent of men.The older the motorist, the greener they get, according to the statistics.The least environmentally conscious are motorists aged 25-34 years.Up to age 24, 37 per cent are switching to smaller cars and over 45 it is 45 per cent.The Sunshine Coast leads with 52 per cent choosing a greener car, compared with 32 per cent in Brisbane and 47 per cent on the Gold Coast.When it comes to public transport, young Brisbane males are more active.Across the state only one in five has deliberately chosen public transport over a car; 27 per cent males and 16 per cent females.Almost half of those aged up to 24 are likely to take a bus or train, declining to 14 per cent in the 45-55 years age group.In Brisbane it is 31 per cent, Gold Coast 23 per cent and Sunshine Coast only 10 in a hundred.More women than men are cycling or walking more instead of driving.Statewide the walking/cycling participation level is 40 per cent, made up of 42 per cent women.Top walkers and cyclers are those aged 25-40, with older age groups not far behind, while the under 24s have only 17 per cent activity.NRMA Insurance has also released figures which show that Queenslanders taking up its Carbonators offer had helped offset more than 19,700 tonnes of carbon emissions.That is the same amount of pollution as more 4500 cars emit in a year, according to NRMA Insurance.It uses a formula based on a conservative average of a car emitting 4.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.Using NRMA Insurance's online carbon calculator (climatehelp.com.au) that relates to a family car travelling about 20,000km a year.Last year, Australians bought a record 1 million new cars which potentially means 3.4 million extra tonnes of carbon a year.Private car use makes up 34 per cent of all Australian household greenhouse gas emissions, making it the worst contributor of CO2 emissions. 

Unleaded petrol prices jumped to just under $1.50 a litre in Sydney and Melbourne yesterday and will pass that threshold over coming weeks if the new oil price record is maintained."There is no doubt that world oil prices will have an impact on Australian petrol prices, but if there is anyone thinking of using the spike in the market to make extra profits, they will be dealt with," Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen said.The jump in petrol prices is a challenge both to the Rudd Government's commitment to stop price gouging in the petrol industry and to its economic strategy.Treasurer Wayne Swan said yesterday that in addition to the burden on motorists, higher petrol prices could flow through to other prices."Higher world oil prices may well put upward pressure on production costs and the costs of other goods and services, meaning the already difficult inflation challenge we've inherited from the previous government could be exacerbated."Economists expect the jump in petrol prices to flow rapidly through to inflation, forcing the Reserve Bank to raise rates further to slow the economy.Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said the Government had an obligation to explain the spike in petrol prices to voters."Kevin Rudd spent most of 2007 trying to convince Australians he had a silver bullet for petrol pricing," he said."Mr Rudd now needs to explain in 2008 why it is that petrol that was put into a service station on one day increases by 12c a litre overnight."Motoring organisations said the jump in petrol prices on Wednesday night could not be justified."We've seen jumps of around 10c a litre, which is not warranted by this movement in world oil prices," NRMA president Alan Evans said.Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel said the NRMA's assessment may be correct and that he was concerned some recent increases may be excessive."My warning to the oil companies and the petrol companies is to say to them, 'Do not use the $US100 headline oil price as an excuse for artificially inflating prices because now you are subject to formal price monitoring'.”The Government gave the ACCC the power to monitor petrol prices shortly before Christmas after it had subpoenaed information from oil companies. It is also appointing a new commissioner to the ACCC to take charge of petrol pricing.It may take until next month before the ACCC is ready to start collecting price information, but Mr Bowen said it had the power to investigate any unusual price movements going back to December when he issued the instruction.Mr Samuel said the $US100 a barrel price was only about a 3 per cent increase and there was usually a lag of at least a week before higher oil prices were reflected at the bowser.“Any attempt to connect the current price increases to the $US100 barrel price of crude oil is ingenuous,” he said.Oil companies and retailers denied recent increases in petrol prices were the result of anything other than rises in costs.A spokesman for Coles Express said fuel prices were largely determined by prices beyond the control of retailers, including the oil price, the exchange rate, refiners' margins and taxes. “Fuel retailing is very competitive and motorists are keenly aware of even the smallest price differential,” he said.A spokesman for BP said the ACCC itself had found that their retail prices were based on international market movements: “We have been, and will continue to be, more than co-operative from the ACCC.” What do you think about the artificially inflated petrol prices? Do you believe the ACCC are doing their job effectively? 

A carbon tax is one of several so-called 'transparent' charges proposed by the RACQ to replace the Federal Government's 38.1 a litre excise charge.The idea of slugging motorists to combat climate change emerged yesterday as the Government prepared to release the findings of a study into petrol prices by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.The report is expected to show that motorists have in recent times been paying the price for reduced competition in the market.The RACQ's proposed carbon tax would be levied on petrol, with the revenue used by the big oil companies to buy credits to offset the industry's carbon emissions.RACQ external affairs manager Gary Fites said a 'fundamental overhaul' of motoring charges was needed to meet the challenge of climate change.“There needs to be a new paradigm which has benefits that are transparent and motorists can relate to and sends them clear signals about driving in congested conditions or using gas-guzzling cars,” Mr Fites said.The Government collects about $14 billion annually from its excise charge, of which only 15 in every $1 is spent on building, maintaining and planning roads.But in a separate report to be released today, economic consultants Access Economics said the Howard Government's decision to freeze the petrol excise in 2001 was 'bad policy.'It goes on to recommend the excise again be indexed to inflation.The ACCC inquiry heard how Australia's big four petrol companies were locked in a do-or-die battle for market domination, and motorists were paying the price.Oil giants Shell and Caltex were reportedly on a mission to destroy rivals BP and Mobil, the inquiry was told.Opposition competition policy spokesman Peter Dutton said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had given the impression at the election that he would bring down petrol prices.“I believe leading Australians to believe that petrol prices would fall under Rudd was a lie,” Mr Dutton said. Is it fair to add a carbon tax just because someone chooses to drive an SUV, 4WD or even a van?