Everything around us is going up, including taxes.
Why taxes have to go up when we're about to announce a budget surplus of about $20 billion is beyond anyone's understanding. But government doesn't seem to get the message.
The pre-election promises were that the government would deal differently with petrol prices, supermarket prices and interest rates. Well, they've dealt differently all right. They've all gone up astronomically, such that even people on high incomes are feeling the pinch.
Now the new Petrol Commissioner, Mr Walker has let the cat out of the bag. Competition has collapsed in petrol retailing because of the failure of the Trade Practices Act and the failure of the ACCC.
I've been warning about this for years. But now the Petrol Commissioner confirms everything I've been saying.
Motorists are paying higher prices at Coles petrol outlets. Well, everyone knew that except the ACCC and the Government. This Government and the previous Government.
We always said that the shopper docket discount of 4 cents a litre was too good to be true. And the old axiom applies, if it looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true. And what the Petrol Commissioner is now saying is the shopper dockets are driving up prices, and that Coles have the highest petrol prices.
Well, you don't need a Harvard degree to know that. The so-called discount has to be paid for somehow. Coles pay for it with higher grocery prices and higher petrol prices.
But that surely is not the issue. The Petrol Commissioner's given us proof. What are the Petrol Commissioner and the Government going to do about it?
The ACCC are part of the problem.
They gave the green light to Coles and Woolworths and the so-called shopper docket discounts. Indeed on 6 February 2004, Graeme Samuel of the ACCC issued a report which said, "The ACCC's conducted a review of the tying of petrol discounts to grocery sales by both Coles Myer Limited and Woolworths Limited. It found that the introduction of the shopper docket schemes has encouraged competition and lower prices in the fuel market".
Now the same Graeme Samuel is saying last Thursday, "Motorists should be wary of using discount petrol vouchers from Coles supermarkets, because the high pump prices will outweigh any saving." But if that's not bad enough, what is worse is that through the shopper dockets Woolworths and Coles have extended their tentacles into petrol.
Independent retailers have not been able to compete because Woolworths and Coles just load the price up onto groceries. So along the way, Woolworths and Coles have eliminated hundreds of independent petrol retailers. So the independents no longer can bring competitive pressure to the market to keep prices under control.
I've been warning of this for years.
Now we've got a Petrol Commissioner telling us that consumers are being ripped off. And the Petrol Commissioner now says, "It's important that consumers do not automatically rely on their petrol discount voucher to necessarily deliver the lowest price".
But we thought the ACCC was supposed to, according to its name, Competition and Consumer Commission, protect competition and consumers. Indeed there's a raft of staff paid handsomely to do that.
Here is your inflation problem: Prices in groceries and petrol going through the roof, and no Trade Practices Act strong enough to do anything about it.
It's all very well having a Fuel Watch and a Petrol Commissioner. He should tell us, as should the Government, what are they doing about what we've known for years.
Is the Rudd Government prepared to stand up for consumers? I mean action, not rhetoric.
The ACCC has stood by and allowed Coles and Woolworths to extend their stranglehold over the retail petrol market.
The ACCC gave their blessing to the shopper discount dockets by approving them under the Trade Practices Act.
Such discount arrangements are ordinarily illegal, as they're considered anti-competitive. The ACCC, if not the Government, should immediately revoke approval of shopper docket discounts. Because by its own admission, these discounts are a mirage. The oldest trick in the book. Lift your prices and then say you're offering a discount.
The ACCC and the Government stand by and do nothing. And then someone might attack geographic price discrimination, where Coles and Woolworths only give discounts at outlets where they face competition.
Where they don't face competition, the prices go through the roof. Meanwhile, Struggle Street faces the prospect of higher interest rates simply because this nonsense goes on.
Mr Rudd said he'd fix all this.
Time is running out on his credibility.
