Media Release

MASSIVE discounting of fuel prices by the supermarket giants has revealed their “unconscionable profit margins” thanks to the oligopolistic powers they enjoy with the oil companies, KAP Federal Leader and Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has warned.

“There’s hardly any independent privately-owned petrol stations with significant throughput left in Australia,” said Mr Katter following reports of 45c/L discounts in the supermarket giants’ petrol price war.

“And when they’ve wiped out all the competition, they’ll be able to charge us whatever they want – for food, petrol, hardware, liquor… the list goes on and on.”

Mr Katter said the KAP had introduced laws to Parliament stating that it is illegal to own more than 20 per cent market share within a group of companies (addressing also the intrusion into hardware, liquor and petrol retail markets, department stores, office supplies, licensed venues and gaming, plus operations in financial services, credit cards, coal mining, energy and investment banking).

“But don’t expect the corporate-controlled major party Australian governments to stand up against the supermarket oligopoly’s insatiable appetite for expansion beyond their colossal market share,” said Mr Katter.

“Nor did ALP and LNP MPs vote for the KAP’s ethanol laws to give motorists significant cost-of-living relief at the bowser.

“Because it’s people with the power like the supermarket giants and coal seam gas people who are stopping Australian governments from going to ethanol.”

Mr Katter said not only was ethanol considerably cheaper than the price at which you could buy oil anywhere in the world, it also reduced our reliance on expensive overseas oil – for which we’re currently sending $19,500m a year to Middle Eastern oil producers.

Ethanol would also reinvigorate regional and agricultural communities being squeezed by the supermarket giants – by increasing prices for sugar and grain, as the world experience has shown; producing a super-nutritious byproduct feed for cattle; and turning the waste from our sugar mills into ethanol and electricity producers, stimulating jobs and cheaper electricity.

Yet not one of the ALP or LNP federal MPs – from those who supposedly stand up for our sugar, cattle and grain regions, to those who represent capital city dwellers suffocated by lethal motor vehicle emissions – voted for an emergency move in the final week of Parliament to mandate a renewable ethanol content in motor vehicle fuels.

“MPs from the political duopoly which controls Australia should be voting for laws like ours to support their communities, rather than kowtowing to their corporate-controlled parties,” said Mr Katter.