Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / CEO NT Cattlemans Association Will Evans Talks About The Current Threat of Foot and Mouth Disease To The NT's Cattle Industry
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Three sixty with Katie Wolf thanks to Joyce Main Darwin
- 0:04Speaker 1: Homes on Stuart Highway, Bereromote.
- 0:06Speaker 2: It's twenty eight minutes after nine o'clock eight nine four
- 0:08Speaker 2: one one oh four nine. If you'd like to call
- 0:10Speaker 2: through this morning, if you'd like to send us a message,
- 0:12Speaker 2: as so many of you have done already about these
- 0:16Speaker 2: petrol prices, it's zero four double nine seven double one
- 0:20Speaker 2: three six zero. Now just to take you through those
- 0:23Speaker 2: terminal gate price prices and also the bowser prices in
- 0:27Speaker 2: Darwin today. Firstly, for your unlettered will, the terminal gate
- 0:31Speaker 2: price according to the Australian Institute of Petroleum, it is
- 0:35Speaker 2: sitting at a dollar sixty two point seven. Now at
- 0:38Speaker 2: the bowser you're paying two dollars five point five on
- 0:41Speaker 2: average for your diesel at the terminal gate it's a
- 0:45Speaker 2: dollar ninety point six.
- 0:47Speaker 1: Then when you go across to.
- 0:48Speaker 2: The bowser again the average around a dollar thirty three
- 0:51Speaker 2: point five. So there does certainly appear to be some
- 0:55Speaker 2: massive margins there. Now joining me on the line to
- 0:58Speaker 2: talk more about this is Jeff Trotter. He's an industry
- 1:01Speaker 2: expert who's worked with some of the world's major petrol
- 1:04Speaker 2: companies and is now the general manager of Fuel Track.
- 1:07Speaker 1: Good morning to you.
- 1:07Speaker 3: Jeff, Good morning Katie.
- 1:10Speaker 1: Great have you on the show, Jeff.
- 1:12Speaker 2: Have you been keeping an eye on the prices in
- 1:14Speaker 2: Darwin and how do you reckon we compare it to
- 1:16Speaker 2: other locations around the nation At this point, Katie.
- 1:20Speaker 3: We're actually tracking the prices at about one hundred and
- 1:22Speaker 3: eighty locations around Australia currently and have been doing now
- 1:26Speaker 3: for some months, principally to see whether or not matoris
- 1:32Speaker 3: we're getting the benefit of that reduction in the federal excise.
- 1:36Speaker 3: The federal government announced that reduction about twenty two and
- 1:39Speaker 3: a half since in the wholesale rate, but at the
- 1:43Speaker 3: pump it should have delivered it twenty five cent earlier.
- 1:46Speaker 3: Saving Now the concern we've got, Katie is that what's
- 1:52Speaker 3: happened apart from that reduction the excise is that since
- 1:57Speaker 3: the twenty third of June, there's been a significant and
- 2:00Speaker 3: I mean significant drop in international wholesale prices for unleaded
- 2:05Speaker 3: and diesel. And whilst we're seeing some savings being passed
- 2:11Speaker 3: on to motorists in the other capital cities for unleaded,
- 2:18Speaker 3: no significant savings are being passed on by the old
- 2:21Speaker 3: companies to anybody, and I mean anybody buying diesel around Australia.
- 2:27Speaker 3: It's really outrageous. Wow. Look in the situation in Darwen
- 2:32Speaker 3: in particular, you're right, you're unleaded come price about two
- 2:37Speaker 3: dollars six a liter, and they can and the wholesale
- 2:40Speaker 3: price is down below a dollars seventy, so they're making
- 2:42Speaker 3: they're making forty cents a letter on unleaded at that
- 2:46Speaker 3: price and diesel. Your average is two thirty four, you said,
- 2:49Speaker 3: and it's down below about ninety five, so they making
- 2:53Speaker 3: another forty plus cents a letter on diesel.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Right, it's jff.
- 2:58Speaker 2: It feels like we're being after, to put it politely, Look.
- 3:04Speaker 3: Darwin in particular is being shafted on unlettered petrol and diesel.
- 3:09Speaker 3: The rest of the nation has been completely shafted on diesel.
- 3:13Speaker 3: Let me tell you there's been no significant reduction in
- 3:17Speaker 3: diesel prices at any of the capital cities, let alone
- 3:20Speaker 3: any of the regional cities around Australia. Now, I know
- 3:23Speaker 3: this treasurer is said he's keeping an iron it, but
- 3:27Speaker 3: I don't know how much longer he's going to keep
- 3:28Speaker 3: an iron it to work out that materis have been
- 3:31Speaker 3: watered on. Diesel in particular, Darwin has a special case
- 3:35Speaker 3: run because most of our capital cities, apart from the
- 3:40Speaker 3: old people in Hobart as usual, all the other capital
- 3:43Speaker 3: cities you can get fuel between a dollar eight and
- 3:46Speaker 3: a dollar ninety anywhere. At the moment some of them
- 3:48Speaker 3: were down as well as a dollar seventy five. Darwin. No,
- 3:53Speaker 3: it's the Darwin cooker. You know. The boys the fixes
- 3:56Speaker 3: in and it took some very wrong action from the
- 4:00Speaker 3: Chief Minister a number of years ago to effectively sort
- 4:03Speaker 3: of break up that club up there. And I think
- 4:07Speaker 3: the Chief Minister needs to call them in again and
- 4:09Speaker 3: get a please explain from them why are they not
- 4:13Speaker 3: passing on any significant savings the pump Runt letter, but
- 4:16Speaker 3: particularly for diesel.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Jeff, that is like music to my ears.
- 4:21Speaker 2: Mate. I've been thinking, you know, why are we in
- 4:23Speaker 2: a situation here in the Northern Territory where we're not
- 4:26Speaker 2: doing what we did all those years ago when Adam
- 4:29Speaker 2: Giles was the Chief Minister. We called him out very
- 4:32Speaker 2: strongly on this show. At the time, Pete Davies was
- 4:35Speaker 2: the host. I was producing the show and he was
- 4:37Speaker 2: really strong on it. We felt like we were being
- 4:40Speaker 2: shafted back then, and it feels like we're in the
- 4:42Speaker 2: same situation now. But I can't believe, you know that
- 4:45Speaker 2: the Chief Minister is not actually standing up and going
- 4:47Speaker 2: hang on a second, why, you know, please explain why
- 4:51Speaker 2: these profit margins are the way that they are right now.
- 4:54Speaker 3: Yeah, And look, the Northern Arffism is in the unique position,
- 5:00Speaker 3: as I understand it, of the Chief Minister having the
- 5:03Speaker 3: power to actually call them in and set a price.
- 5:07Speaker 3: That's the power that most other states don't have. And
- 5:12Speaker 3: I understand it. Under some emergency legislation you've got available
- 5:16Speaker 3: to the Chief Minister, he can actually call them in
- 5:19Speaker 3: and if need be, he could set a sealing price
- 5:22Speaker 3: for them. And my guess would be that he should
- 5:25Speaker 3: drop it by twenty five cents a leader across unleaded
- 5:29Speaker 3: and diesel.
- 5:30Speaker 2: Wow, Jeff Old, just that you know, we've got a
- 5:33Speaker 2: female chief minister now, Natasha Fhiles is her name, But
- 5:37Speaker 2: the sentiment is still exactly the same. You know, I
- 5:39Speaker 2: think that really, if we are meant to have this
- 5:43Speaker 2: fuel excise in place, Look, honestly, it doesn't feel as
- 5:46Speaker 2: though we've seen much change at all, even since that
- 5:50Speaker 2: fuel excise came in.
- 5:52Speaker 3: Well no, look, at the time that the reduction, the
- 5:55Speaker 3: exercise came in unleaded petrolin down was about till I
- 5:58Speaker 3: was twenty five a leader, and diesel got up to
- 6:01Speaker 3: about two. I was forty year leter in Darwen. The
- 6:05Speaker 3: excised capped by twenty five. Then the international price, which
- 6:11Speaker 3: was the cause of the high prices originally, that has
- 6:15Speaker 3: dropped completely. So what's happened. You've had a nineteen cent
- 6:20Speaker 3: leader reduction at the pumping unleaded, but the wholesale price
- 6:23Speaker 3: has moved down thirty So those thieves have pocketed the
- 6:26Speaker 3: difference and they're doing the same thing on diesel.
- 6:30Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, it's unbelieved.
- 6:33Speaker 3: They need to be called out. They need to be
- 6:36Speaker 3: called out on it now.
- 6:37Speaker 2: Jeff, I want to point out to our listeners as well.
- 6:39Speaker 2: Is that My understanding is you know that you've worked
- 6:41Speaker 2: for some of these huge companies. You worked for Shell
- 6:43Speaker 2: for an incredibly long period of time, didn't you.
- 6:46Speaker 3: I did. I did. And but apart from that, we've
- 6:51Speaker 3: been tracking international prices, local wholesale prices, some prices right
- 6:56Speaker 3: around Australia so we know exactly what these characters are
- 6:58Speaker 3: up to, and the RT, the fixes in on diesel
- 7:02Speaker 3: nationally in Australia, and the fixes in on unleaded petrol
- 7:06Speaker 3: prices in Darwen and Hobart. Let me let me not
- 7:09Speaker 3: forget those poor people. The only capitalist cities where there's
- 7:13Speaker 3: been significant price reductions, adelaide Is would have to be
- 7:18Speaker 3: the leader. They got down to dollar seventy yep. But Bristane, Sydney,
- 7:22Speaker 3: Melbourne and Perth they go up and down like Yo
- 7:25Speaker 3: yo's with this fake fuel cycle thing. They run, you know,
- 7:28Speaker 3: the greatest bubble all times. But apart from that, at
- 7:31Speaker 3: least at the bottom of the cycle, they're down around
- 7:34Speaker 3: the dollars seventies low dollar eates. But you guys don't
- 7:37Speaker 3: see the benefit. You don't see any benefit up there
- 7:39Speaker 3: at all.
- 7:40Speaker 1: No, it's perplexing.
- 7:41Speaker 2: And you know, for me, like I understand I've been
- 7:44Speaker 2: told in the past, you know, by some of these retailers.
- 7:48Speaker 2: It's a situation in Darwin where the terminal gate price
- 7:51Speaker 2: might drop a couple of cents, but the reason that
- 7:53Speaker 2: there's no movement at the bowser is because they've got
- 7:55Speaker 2: to use the fuel that they've already got in storage.
- 7:58Speaker 1: I mean, is that the case?
- 7:59Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's just a rubbish. I mean the international
- 8:04Speaker 3: price international price started dropping on the twenty third of June.
- 8:10Speaker 3: These characters seriously arguing that they've still got the same
- 8:14Speaker 3: fuel and the tanks that they had on the twenty
- 8:16Speaker 3: third of June.
- 8:17Speaker 1: I mean, give me a break, Oh, jeff mate, I
- 8:20Speaker 1: agree with you. I think your spot ony.
- 8:23Speaker 2: I do want to ask you the opposition here in
- 8:26Speaker 2: the Northern Territory, they're proposing the introduction of legislation which
- 8:30Speaker 2: is designed, they say, to drive down the cost of
- 8:32Speaker 2: fuel by requiring petrol stations to disclose their profit margins
- 8:37Speaker 2: on fuel. So that's what they're going to be basically, well,
- 8:40Speaker 2: they're going to be introducing it today in parliament.
- 8:44Speaker 1: You reckon something like this would work?
- 8:47Speaker 3: Well, you know, instead of just disclosing what they're making,
- 8:50Speaker 3: why not cap what they're making. I mean, put look,
- 8:53Speaker 3: the federal government had no qualms about intervening in the
- 8:56Speaker 3: petrol issory. In the electricity market, they put a market
- 8:59Speaker 3: cap of three one hundred dollars per mega what hour
- 9:03Speaker 3: to get through a situation that was facing in electricity.
- 9:06Speaker 3: I think they've also intervened in the gas market. What's
- 9:09Speaker 3: wrong with them intervening in the petrol market. What's different
- 9:13Speaker 3: about the petrol market to the electricity market or the
- 9:16Speaker 3: gas market when there's obvious signs of a cookup? How
- 9:20Speaker 3: was it that virtually every service station in when it's
- 9:24Speaker 3: two dollars and five point nine and these are this
- 9:26Speaker 3: two dollars thirty two point nine up too, Like it's
- 9:30Speaker 3: literally everyone if it was if it was a competitive market,
- 9:34Speaker 3: there would be competition.
- 9:36Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, Jeff, Yeah, I look, I know that all
- 9:40Speaker 2: of our listeners this morning are going to be listening
- 9:42Speaker 2: to you and thinking, Thank goodness, Katie, you've got someone
- 9:44Speaker 2: that's on that is speaking some sense after some of
- 9:47Speaker 2: the garbage that we've been told when it comes to
- 9:49Speaker 2: these petrol prices. So we you know, I think that
- 9:52Speaker 2: you're spot on. We've got a situation here where the
- 9:55Speaker 2: Chief Minister needs to intervene.
- 9:57Speaker 3: Hey, Katie, let me tell you talking about stock the
- 10:00Speaker 3: only stock profit that these oil companies interested in is
- 10:03Speaker 3: the amount of stock profit they can make in all
- 10:05Speaker 3: those tanks out at Boupak. Right, So those characters got
- 10:10Speaker 3: millions deleaders out there that they paid for, like at
- 10:14Speaker 3: a dollar sellios already whatever, and they're still trying to
- 10:16Speaker 3: flog it off at two ills ten and till I
- 10:18Speaker 3: was thirty or whatever the cooked up number is in
- 10:21Speaker 3: Darwin honestly Whattock profits.
- 10:24Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Jeff, I reckon that. You know, I know
- 10:27Speaker 2: that people want to see these prices come down. I
- 10:29Speaker 2: do want to ask you just very quickly. Over the weekend,
- 10:32Speaker 2: the federal government announced that they're going to be fast
- 10:35Speaker 2: tracking the timeline for Australia to phase out dirty petrol
- 10:38Speaker 2: to ensure that we meet these cleaner global standards. But
- 10:41Speaker 2: it's going to apparently come at a short term financial cost. Now,
- 10:45Speaker 2: the Climate Change and the Energy Minister Chris Bowen announce
- 10:48Speaker 2: the nation's fuel supplies will need to be replaced with
- 10:51Speaker 2: petrol which has lower sulphuric acid levels by twenty twenty
- 10:55Speaker 2: four rather than twenty twenty seven. He reckons it's only
- 10:57Speaker 2: going to see each household pay eight dollars extra over
- 11:01Speaker 2: three years.
- 11:03Speaker 1: Is this a good move?
- 11:05Speaker 3: Well, it's a good move to improve the quality standard
- 11:09Speaker 3: these book But let me tell you the federal government
- 11:12Speaker 3: again is paying this character's accompanies two hundred and fifty
- 11:15Speaker 3: million bucks to upgrade the refineries, So why would we
- 11:20Speaker 3: be paying anything extra when the federal government's paying for
- 11:22Speaker 3: the upgrade to the We've only got two refineries in
- 11:25Speaker 3: Australia operated by a Pole and Viva, and the previous
- 11:30Speaker 3: federal government has allocated two hundred and fifty million dollars
- 11:34Speaker 3: to upgrade the refineries to meet the standards. And yet
- 11:37Speaker 3: what the ac company is going to put the price up?
- 11:39Speaker 3: Are they even though they've had a two hundred and
- 11:40Speaker 3: fifty million dollar handout from the taxpayers of Australia. We
- 11:44Speaker 3: should be getting a discount on the fuel of an increase.
- 11:49Speaker 1: Well, Jeff, I tell you what, I appreciate your time
- 11:52Speaker 1: this morning.
- 11:52Speaker 2: You've given us some really great insight and I reckon
- 11:55Speaker 2: you are going to be getting a lot of support
- 11:57Speaker 2: from our listeners.
- 11:58Speaker 1: So thank you so very much for having a chat
- 12:00Speaker 1: with us today.
- 12:02Speaker 3: Please thank you so much.
- 12:04Speaker 2: That number if you do want to call through this
- 12:06Speaker 2: morning eight nine four one one O four nine and
- 12:09Speaker 2: if you did just join us at the end of that.
- 12:10Speaker 2: That was Jeff Trotter, the general manager of fuel Track.
- 12:14Speaker 2: Now we know that he's an industry expert. He's worked
- 12:16Speaker 2: with some of the world's major petrol companies. But he's
- 12:18Speaker 2: now the general manager obviously a fuel track and honestly,
- 12:23Speaker 2: some of what he was saying there, I was thinking,
- 12:25Speaker 2: thank goodness, somebody is actually saying what we've all been
- 12:28Speaker 2: wondering and what we've all been thinking for quite some time.
- 12:31Speaker 1: The tech sign is going off. There's a lot of you.
- 12:36Speaker 2: There is a lot of you that are in contact
- 12:38Speaker 2: with us on the tech Sign and keen to let
- 12:40Speaker 2: us know how things are tracking where you are or
- 12:44Speaker 2: where you may have traveled too recently and the petrol
- 12:47Speaker 2: prices that you've paid. But we're going to take a
- 12:48Speaker 2: really short break before I do read some of those out,
- 12:51Speaker 2: but we are going to be catching up with the
- 12:52Speaker 2: Cattleman's Association in around five minutes time as well,