The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC RADIO CANBERRA, WITH ROD HENSHAW
WEDNESDAY, 8 APRIL 2026
SUBJECTS: Fuel supply; ACCC
ROD HENSHAW: Well, the price of oil looks like it’s falling. In fact, it has fallen today. How long that takes to get to the bowsers is anybody's answer – or anybody's question. But as that price does come down, some questions have been raised about how we can be sure the savings will be passed on to the consumer. Andrew Leigh is Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Andrew, good afternoon. Thanks so much for your time.
ANDREW LEIGH: Good afternoon Rod, great to be with you.
ROD HENSHAW: Why do, or how do we make sure the petrol prices fall as the price of oil does? Because we're told by your colleague, Chris Bowen, that we've got about 39 days in reserve, or whatever it is, around about 30. Now, that would give plenty of time for a shipment to come from through the Strait of Hormuz, to Australia. So, we shouldn't run out if everything goes hunky dory with the ceasefire. So, we really shouldn't be paying too much more should we?
ANDREW LEIGH: So, what we've done is cut the fuel excise and then consult with the states and territories. We've also allowed them to pass on the savings from the GST, so that…
ROD HENSHAW: Which is all good.
ANDREW LEIGH: Yes, absolutely. And so that's direct relief being provided primarily by the federal government, but also with the assistance of the ACT Government. We've been tasking the ACCC with… sorry Rod, I'm just getting quite a bit of feedback on your line.
ROD HENSHAW: Okay. Hang on.
ANDREW LEIGH: Just hearing myself on a delay, which is always a little bit distracting.
ROD HENSHAW: Hang on just a sec, I'll just put you over to this one and see if that makes any difference. Possibly not, but we'll try it anyway. Try that.
ANDREW LEIGH: That's terrific, thank you. That's just a little bit better. So yeah, we've tasked the ACCC with monitoring what's going on with the fuel stations – they have additional resources and also higher penalties they're able to impose. When we came to office, the maximum penalty they could impose was $10 million. We took that to $50 million in 2022 and then to $100 million this year. So that means they have significant penalties. They've already announced that they're carrying out an investigation into fuel retailers and what they're doing around diesel pricing in regional Australia and they're also monitoring at a higher level than historically.
ROD HENSHAW: Is the ACCC doing its job, do you think?
ANDREW LEIGH: Absolutely. They are a well respected consumer and competition regulator. They have significant resources, they have big penalties they're able to impose and we've been working with them very closely. The Treasurer and I have been reaching out to the ACCC on a regular basis, including ensuring that they have the resources that they need. And of course, this comes on the back of our significant consumer and competition reforms over the last three to four years. It's been a very active period in which we've revamped the merger laws, got competition policy going, increase the penalties and empowered the ACCC to crack down on price gouging wherever they see it.
ROD HENSHAW: Well price gouging is not illegal. Maybe it should be, but it's not. Only collusion is illegal, but I'll get back to my basic point that I think the price of oil yesterday per barrel – US dollars was about 108 or 110 a barrel. Today. Last time I looked, that was this morning, so it could have even fallen more but it was down to US $94 a barrel. How soon will that be before we can see the result of that at the bowser?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, typically it does flow through but it takes a bit of time according to how long fuel stations have between fill ups and that'll vary from a couple of days….
ROD HENSHAW: Yeah, but Andrew we've got 39 days. We've got 39 days still waiting to be used?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, that's our fuel reserve. We've released a fifth of that. But otherwise what you're getting out of the bowser is flowing through as a result of regular deliveries. Most of what people are consuming is not coming out of the fuel reserve. It's coming out of the normal supply that fuel retailers are getting coming in. We've worked carefully with companies through the supply chain. We've engaged with some of the refiners to ensure that they have what they need. We've also reached out through Export Finance Australia in order to back in the importers so that they're not hit by unexpected changes in prices.
ROD HENSHAW: Well yeah, look you can't blame people for being cynical because I noticed that, and I've said this a couple of times on air, that before the dust of the first bomb had settled in Iran, the prices went up. They're not going down so damn fast as they did go up?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, we've got the ACCC on that and certainly I know that people are concerned any time there appears to be prices that are taking the lift up and the stairs down. They're aware of that in this context as they are and many others as well. We're also reporting very regularly on the number of fuel stations which don't have either unleaded or diesel. Chris Bowen today reported that in the ACT there were four stations without diesel. No stations that are out of unleaded, so that's a relatively small number. Right across Australia, 97 per cent of service stations have diesel. Only 3 per cent are out. So, those outages are coming down. And I think it's important to stress Rod, that the outages are primarily driven by increases in demand rather than any challenge in supply.
ROD HENSHAW: Good on you Andrew, good to talk and thanks again for your time this arvo.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks so much Rod.
ROD HENSHAW: Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity Competition and Charities.
ENDS