Petrol prices

[xelasnave]

Why so high.
Who is getting the cash.
Why do we suffer such blatant exploitation with out a wimper?
Who is manipulating the market?
Alex

[casstony]

It'll be those devious renewables promoters trying to make us all buy electric cars :)

[AndrewJ]

ACCC is useless at doing anything, as if the big companies make more money, it will trickle down to us eventually.
But more importantly, we play in a rigged world market where we have no reverse leverage, and our pollies know that if we squawk too loudly, we will probably get hit back on something else.

( The ACCC does have a pretty good monitoring service tho

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/petrol-diesel-lpg/petrol-price-cycles#petrol-prices-in-melbourne )

When i show people overseas how our petrol prices operate, it leaves em stunned.
Andrew

[pmrid]

A question that the ACCC does not even try to answer is why our prices are predicated on the Singapore Market. Why should a country that produces sweet crude (as I understand we do) have to be linked to an offshore cartel pricing?

And I suppose we need to then ask, what is or was behind the decision to close so much - or is it now all - of our refineries capacity.

It is disingenuous of the ICCC to say (as they do) that they neither set nor control retail prices in Australia. It ignores the underlying question of WHO DOES. Someone is raking billions a week out of us. Where is it going? And why is it that the ICCC wrings its hands and does nothing?

Peter

[drylander]

Simple answer: higher the price higher the GST component so its in the governments interest for them to remain as high as possible and will only act if it costs votes. Cynical? maybe but works for me as I see no other reason than corporate greed benefiting the government of the day.
Pete
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[AndyG]

From what I understand, for a long time, it has been cheaper for us to buy petrol products from the other side of the world, than for us to suck it up/refine it ourselves. I can't believe it either, but that's how it seems.

The result is, we put ourselves at their mercy, with no counter-leverage as mentioned. As another wise soul said here last week. "Soon enough, we won't be able to manufacture a jar of jam"...

I don't know if I hate this more than you do, or your feelings outdo mine :shrug:

[AndyG]

This has GOT to be relevant. I'd love to see a counter argument to this idea.

[FlashDrive]

Couldn't agree more ... well said ..!!

[N1]

Perhaps because the average Australian income buys more petrol now than it did 10 or 20 years ago, and few people need even more petrol than that? :driving:

[pmrid]

Some time ago, I was told that when our domestic prices were first pegged to the overseas (Singapore etc) markets, it was agreed to by government as a part of a set of inducements to the major oil exploration companies to identify and exploit Australian reserves - i.e. you find us some oil and we'll let you sell the end product to the domestic punters at the international parity pricing in return. I add this caveat - I have no personal knowledge of this - but I am raising it to see if anyone out there in IIS land does and can confirm or refute it.

Peter

[AndrewJ]

Gday Col

Only problem is that they collect the GST from mum and dad Australians in all places, but the excess fuel profits mostly leave the country, thus affecting our balance of trade at the govt level.

At the mum and dad level, they only have a finite budget.
They now have less money to spend in the local markets on other products/services and business dries up, so less GST gets collected from local business .
End result, govt ends up with roughly the same total GST, local business gets decimated and overseas multinationals laugh all the way to the bank.


Andrew

[dpastern]

We have massive oil reserves AFAIK, but the problem is, we are a small global market place, physically isolated from the rest of the world. If we dare collect and refine our own oil and become sufficient, certain other countries will retaliated with embargoes *cough* the US *cough*. The US is ruthless in screwing over other countries (just ask Cuba, Canada or Venezuela). The humorous thing is that Americans consume the highest amount of petrols per capita of pretty much any Western country. As Trump would say "America first!".

[RB]

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