Fuel companies are asking Tasmanians to accept something consumers would never tolerate in any other essential market: sudden, sharp price increases with no clear explanation and no meaningful transparency.
Fuel prices jumped almost immediately after the Trump and Netanyahu-initiated conflict erupted in Iran, even though it takes weeks and often months for petrol refined overseas to reach Tasmanian bowsers.
So, what exactly are we paying for?
The federal Albanese Labor government has secured assurances that no export restrictions will be placed on fuel cargoes bound for Australia from Singapore, and has shored up supplies from key refined petrol and diesel exporters, Brunei and Malaysia. The Tasmanian Parliament has already moved in the right direction, passing urgent legislation to monitor fuel stocks.
But legislation without disclosure is useless. It is like setting a speed limit and not enforcing it. The public still does not know the wholesale price at which retailers acquired the fuel now being sold. Therefore, talk of "transparency" is bulldust.
Let's be clear. No ordinary business would willingly disclose its markup. Most Australians would agree with that. Competitive markets rely on pricing discretion, and most companies are entitled to protect their commercial strategy. But fuel is not sneakers and sunglasses. It is an essential item in almost every part of daily life. Our daily commute, freight of our food and emergency services. When the price of fuel rises, the price of everything else does too. That reason alone is precisely why fuel companies should be held to a higher standard and why transparency requirements should be higher as well. It should be the price of doing business in that market.
This is not a radical concept.
For example, insurance brokers must disclose their commissions, and lawyers must tell clients their costs, which include their profit margins.
These requirements do not destroy competition; they are a mechanism to strengthen trust. These measures ensure consumers can judge whether the price they are paying is fair. Of course, this assumes petrol companies will play fairly and not collude to keep prices high, even after disclosing wholesale pricing, but that's where tougher consumer laws come in.
Australian Consumer Law already recognises the principle at stake. Businesses cannot mislead consumers about why prices rise; for example, a fuel company could not, by law, cite cost increases that did not occur. But without visibility into wholesale pricing, enforcement becomes nearly impossible. If retailers claim international events forced prices up, the public has no way of assessing whether those claims align with the actual purchase cost of fuel already in storage.
The federal government's National Fuel Security Plan allows it, if the nation escalates to level three, to compel companies to provide information on the production, supply, purchase, and sale of fuel. It is a national plan, but it relies on the states to use their specific legislative "teeth" to compel local distributors and retailers to provide data. If volatility persists, state ministers should use it; that authority should not go to waste. Compelling companies to disclose the wholesale price of the fuel they currently sell would not dictate margins. It would simply illuminate them.
Tasmanians deserve maximum clarity about the rising cost of fuel. In a time of global instability and local price shocks, compelling fuel companies to disclose the prices at which they purchase fuel is not heavy-handed regulation. It is a reasonable and necessary requirement.
Of course, the fuel companies have us by the short and curlies; it is not like we can decide not to buy the product, unless we all get electric vehicles. But that's an entirely different argument.
Craig Thomson is the editor of The Examiner.