Sorry this is not photography unless you are driving to take photos over easter but I think this is the best description of the current petrol pricing system I have read if you are not happy paying $1.20+ for petrol please have a read and pass it on to those you think are also upset by the current price structure.
If you attempted to drive anywhere on our clogged roads this weekend and saw the number of cars sitting going nowhere, burning fuel it makes you think someone is having a happy easter.
Why we should not be paying $1.34 a litre
This week leading up to Easter, Australians have had every right to wonder why they are being crucified at the petrol pump. Fuel prices have climbed to $1.34 a litre for regular fuel, perhaps more in some locations.
The detailed explanation for the current exorbitant fuel pricing lies partly in Federal Government taxation policy, but more significantly with global fuel companies and supermarket cartels, profiteering in a deregulated market.
The Australian Government abolished controls regulating the capping of wholesale fuel prices in 1998, opting for "import price parity", which, at the time, provided low fuel costs as the then market price was around $US20-30 a barrel. However, today, with the price of foreign oil reaching $US65 a barrel and home-produced Australian crude available for less than $US20 a barrel (Australia is 75 per cent self-sufficient in crude oil production), an obvious inequity in fuel pricing parity occurs.
Combine this with the systematic buy-out and elimination of smaller private petrol stations in the past two years, enabling the global fuel companies and supermarket cartels to gain a near monopoly of the market share, and the result is unrestricted profiteering, delivering billion-dollar profits at the expense of Australian motorists. So if you're paying $1.34 a litre this week for fuel, at least 51 cents is tax. The remaining 83 cents goes to the fuel company cartels.
Fuel companies will argue that the market price of crude is high, but in reality this is a stock exchange price based on the Singapore market and New York Stock Exchange futures; it does not reflect the true cost of crude oil supply.
The price of crude oil from Bass Strait is a good example: in 2002 a barrel of crude retailed for $US20; its supply cost would have been significantly less. In 2006 that same oilfield retails crude oil for $US63 a barrel, even though its supply cost is less than $US20 a barrel. Exxon (Esso) owns 50 per cent of Bass Strait Oil. It also owns Mobil, which owns the Altona Refinery sourced by the Bass Strait pipeline. How much cheaper must it be to pump your own crude, from your own oil rigs, to your own refineries, for your own service stations, than having to ship it from overseas at foreign-market prices?
It's an established fact that 50 per cent of Australian petrol is produced from Australian crude oil, at much reduced supply and production costs — yet these cost savings are never reflected in pump prices or passed on to consumers. This unacceptable circumstance is best remedied by a change of government policy — or, alternatively, by a change of government. Tom Quinn, Morwell
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Interesting sentiments but I really can't see a change of government making a scrap of difference. Neither the Liberals in Canberra nor any State Labor government have ever shown any serious desire to tackle this escalating problem.
Simon
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Hear hear,
Hopefully some positive will come out of this and there will be a much larger push for alternative fuel sources and more efficent cars. The reality is though that we need fuel to get from place to place and no matter what they charge people will still have to buy it. Paul http://www.australiandigitalphotography.com
Living in poverty due to my addiction to NIKON... Is there a clinic that can help me?
I wouldn't mind paying 124 cents a litre which is what it's at here near toowoomba as long as each time I filled up I got to slap Mr howard across the face with a leather glove.
Interesting read dug great post! Are we there yet?
Michael, Why do you want to be so cruel to a leather glove? g.
Gary Stark Nikon, Canon, Bronica .... stuff The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it - US Pres. Bartlet
Sadly this is why we are not looking for alternative fuels because the big boys are making way too much money from keeping the system just as it is.
A chain mail glove, filled with concrete perhaps?
a chain mail glove, filled with nails and each nail has a message from someone out there in the working force written on it. gary, Im sure the leather glove wouldn't mind because in a way cows are getting back at high petrol prices too! Are we there yet?
Bottled water is just as good for you as tap water and costs 10,000 times the price.
I saw water that was imported from Malaysia a few days ago 
No way I would drink that and the transport costs must be insane. It is a strange world we live in.
NO who in hell would drink that much water but I 'm into my 3rd carton of Crownies since Thursday night could be a expensive Easter 
we all know what fish do in water...........
 Cheers ....bp....
Difference between a good street photographer and a great street photographer.... Removing objects that do not belong... happy for the comments, but .....Please DO NOT edit my image..... http://bigpix.smugmug.com Forever changing
Aw shucks fella's!
Today I paid $149.8 / litre for deisil, and $7.60 / 12 litres of water.(Our local mains water is that calcium rich it will stain glass! and the smell )
Now maybe if we had a few more voters up here 
Holy crap http://www.australiandigitalphotography.com
Living in poverty due to my addiction to NIKON... Is there a clinic that can help me?
If you really want to know why petrol is so expensive, check out these.
Life After the Oil Crash Aritmetic, Population & Energy A summary of the issue Chris
Agreed there is a crash coming but high prices and high profits are not giving the incentives needed for research into alternative fuels.
We need a government to bite the bullet and say "OK you are making a killing X% of your profits goes into funding independent research into alternative fuel. Leaving fuel companies to research alternative fuel is like allowing cigarette companies to research the health risks of smoking. There are also massive reserves of oil in underdeveloped remote areas that are not being developed to keep prices artificially high. PNG is the closest example of this they have enormous potential for oil and gas reserves but minimal development as yet.
If only. Mind you, a lot of the research has been done, what's missing is the backbone to say to people "would you rather have a coal plant in your suburb or a wind farm", rather than "if you whine enough we'll stop the wind farm" as is happening way too often for my liking. FWIW, I've bought a property from an objector to a proposed wind farm, specifically so I can turn their nay into my yea. This is also where things like carbon taxes come in - if the price reflects more "externalities"[1] then people can make more sensible choices.
But most of those are only viable if prices rise. And much of that "reserve" requires new technology if it's going to return more oil than it takes to extract it - this is where crazy stuff like using nukes on tar sands in Canada comes from, because if you have to burn oil to heat the rock to get the oil it's like Queensland ethanol - costs more to make it than it's worth (energy as well as money). [1] a swear word used by economists to mean "make some other sucker pay the bills". http://www.moz.net.nz
have bicycle, will go to Critical Mass
I love wind farms, i think they are beautiful, I have stayed and slept next to wind generators and heard nothing but a slow rhythmic whoosh if you are very close to them.
I cannot understand how anyone can object to them. I have seen plenty of coal fired generators too they are ugly blots on the landscape. I wonder what Australia would be like if 100 years ago we had said "No windmills they are ugly, noisy and kill birds". The rural landscape of Australia would certainly be a lot different than it is today.
One thing that struck me in the outback was that there's no illusions about where the electricity comes from - every place we visited had the thudda-thudda-thudda of a generator running. I really noticed the community we visited that ran mostly on solar!
In the city it's easy to imagine that electricity comes "from the socket". I think changing that somehow is a key step to getting people to change their attitude. Like people who won't use energy efficient lightbulbs, even if they're free. They're different (and different is bad). Bah! http://www.moz.net.nz
have bicycle, will go to Critical Mass
The locals opposed these because when they "Turned on" the fans they sucked all the bad weather in off to ocean. I kid you not! Now we live in comfortable suburbia I am amazed how seductive suburbia is, when you want water you turn on a tap and it comes out, when you want power, a flick of a switch! Most Australians could not cope in a real world.
If you take the trouble to read all of the info that BlinkBlink has ported too. You will see the illogic of wind farms and other current alternative energy sources. It should be compulsory reading for greenies and other activists.
Wind farms are required to be backed up to 60 - 80 % of their usable capacity by conventional power sources. There is 400 years of coal under the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. This coal can only be used as it is at the present - generating power. It cannot be exported due to its low grade. This current power generating source is of extremely low running costs compared to other technologies. The money spent on wind farms would be far better spent on further improvements to exhaust cleaning. All of the wind generators currently operating in Australia would make up less than 10% of one coal fired generator at the Latrobe Valley.
money money money, Until it is profitable to make change, change wont happen. Regardless of enviromental issues or the cost to the masses.
As we all try to chisel out an existence we are merely treated as either assets or liabilitys. If anything is to change you must first change yourself.. I for one find it absurd that we have basicaly evolved no further than when the light bulb and the automobile were invented. Our dependance on oil has been controlled to maximise profit, and anything to threaten that has been swiftly dealt with to ensure the full life cycle of our dependance continues. So until you cant afford it or choose not to use it, we will continue to be profited off by the owners of oil. As for Howard, well Dug youknow my feelings there. 
Brett More fishing, more sport, more photo's Pentax 1stds
Myself... I don't mind paying $1.30 / litre for petrol... I'm used to paying almost twice that in Europe...
Petrol is at quite a low price in Oz and that probably explains why there are so many gas guzzling 4WDs & 4litre cars on the road here. If people really wanted to cut their fuel costs, then they would be driving smaller cars with a little more consideration. I also have to wonder about how people can ignore the inevitability of the global marketplace... I did some work for one of the big oil producers recently and know that most oil costs about $5 a barrel to extract from its source... However, the price for that oil is determined by the world market and why should it be any other way... Do you really think that Aussie oil producers would sell their oil to Australians for $20 / barrel when they could sell it overseas for $60  Cheers, John
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Only if our consumption remains the same. The video Arithmetic, Population and Enegry I posted explains quite elloquently that due to exponential growth it won't last anywhere near that long. Sadly, there are no viable alternatives to fosil fuels. The only option the world has is to power down and de-populate. The de-population will be forced upon us. The shit will hit the fan. It is not a case of 'if' but 'when'. My guess is within the next 5 years. Chris
Carefull BlinkBlink, an American University proffesor made that very point regarding de - population only this week and he was severly castigated for it. The FBI has been called in to investigate him.
It seems he theorised that there is a lethal strain of Ebola virus that will escape from Africa and wipe out 80% of the world's population.
That whole peak oil thing is predicated on a total lack of lifestyle change by everyone. It's fairly easy to reduce most people's energy footprint by half or better, and an order of magnitude isn't out of the question with a bit of support (functioning rail services, for instance, and other lifestyle changes).
I suspect I might be biased - I grew up with ~80% hydro, so renewables don't seem very alternative to me. I've also studied and built low-embodied-energy power systems. It's not impossible to build solar thermal or even wind systems out of steel or wood, and replacing airconditioning (peak load in most of Oz) with shade can be cheap to free (anyone remember what trees are?) Wind in Oz isn't baseload, sure, but using low grade coal might be expensive if you buy the greenhouse argument - losing the lowest 10m of Australia is not a cheap thing -think of all those coastal settlements and how all the ports use reclaimed land... If we add 20-30% wind power and perhaps some solar thermal that'll take a load off the coal power stations. It also reduces the number of them, as hopefully it'll cover the growth in demand until people wake up to the "make things mroe efficient" option which is still hugely unpopular (and sometimes uneconomic). http://www.moz.net.nz
have bicycle, will go to Critical Mass
Hey Dug, maybe we should have been protesting oil prices, oh well one issue at a time
And Just for you Dug 
 More fishing, more sport, more photo's Pentax 1stds
Anybody out there remember the '73 oil crisis and also lived in Britain?
Petrol could only be bought with coupons and your ration was 10 litres a week. High petrol guzzling cars could not be given away. All the Aussies were buying 2 and 3 year old Jags for $ 100.00. Check this regarding increased fuel efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox There are some that regard Global Warming as the Y2K bug of the norties
Dug, Tennant Creek is $1.399/l for ULP and $1.509/l for diesel. Apparently we pay fuel prices that are in the top 6 in the country - I think that that only covers the major centres because if you drive 50km down the road the price will be 25-30 cents higher. One thing that I will say for our prices is that they are always the same. There is none of the up and down BS that is found in the cities. Prices certainly did not get jacked up for the Easter weekend - we can expect to be paying the same two weeks from now. There are a couple of things that do get my blood boiling. The first is paying a tax on a tax - GST on the levies, excises or whatever they are called. Oh please!!! The next is the amount of tax that we pay on fuels - somewhere around/over 50%???? - when there is only a couple of percent actually spent on our roads when a significant portion of the tax collected is for our roads. The rest just seems to get soaked up by general revenue. This would not be so bad in itself if it were put somewhere useful, but with the opening of more and more toll roads (fortunately none in the NT...yet), and the reduction in services across the board I have to wonder where all the money gets to at a time when government collects more tax as a percentage of GDP than ever. To top it off, higher oil prices = taxation bonanza. The whole thing is crazy. Government seems to think that they are elected to do two things. The first is to legislate (if they are not legislating they must feel that they are seen to be doing nothing). The second is to collect, no bleed as much tax out of the community as possible. The reality is that it is governments job to collect as little tax as possible to provide neccesary services, and if there is a surplus then it should be returned to the taxpayer with a tax cut (to ensure there is no future surplus) or spent in a manner that benefits ALL Australians along with a tax cut. Anything else to my mind is fraud, theft or whatever else can be dreamt up. Then there is the matter of John Howard's slush fund... He is still thinking up ways to extract more. It is said that most western economies run on oil. Just one look at the US efforts to secure cheap and stable oil supplies is evidence of that. Is it that in John Howards efforts to collect more tax through fuel he is actually stifling economic growth in this country? Cheers
Just wait until the US invades Iran and see where the prices go
Chris
-------------------------------- I started my life with nothing and I’ve still got most of it left
Perhaps some of the fuel revenue could be usefully spent on employing some more public servants?
Say 500 to investigate how to spend government tax revenue more effectively and another 1000 or so to read government documents and give effective reports to ministers and the PM? They could start the department of saving money and giving clear information it should only cost 5 to 10 billion dollars a year to run.
Does this count as sedition?
Government is organised crime, What else could you call the extortion that they do every day. The fuel price and this discussion are a classic example of tyrants filling thier coffers with gold.
Our governments at all levels collect money from us and then spend it the way they see fit, if they need more money they just hike something up or create a new way to tax the individual. If you complain or do not pay you are a criminal and then punished, wether it be by fines or imprisionment. Organised crime has the same setup, they take a certain amount of money from you for whatever they see fit, if you do not pay you get punished. Less complicated but very much the same. the difference being one is legal and one is not. I am not advocating organised crime, just demonstrating the similarities in the 2 business models. 
Brett More fishing, more sport, more photo's Pentax 1stds
Gentlemen
Any continuation of this thread risks the forum being classified as a subversive organisation. Your telephones will be tapped, your emails scrutinised and your best friends sworn in as ASIO operatives and paid $1500 per week to report everything you do and say. Couldn't happen in Australia? Regards
Matt. K
Do they offer a fuel card with that
Brett More fishing, more sport, more photo's Pentax 1stds
Are you accusing our government of being organised? Answer carefully, and be prepared for follow-up questions. http://www.moz.net.nz
have bicycle, will go to Critical Mass
Unfortunatly, yes they are organised. How else could they not only retain power, but control the senate. Brett More fishing, more sport, more photo's Pentax 1stds
That one is so easy: just look at the typical Aussie Sad, isn't it? . g.
Gary Stark Nikon, Canon, Bronica .... stuff The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it - US Pres. Bartlet
Typical Aussie??
This has been a great thread for a few of us to put our views accross to our fellow members. For all those members who are interested, This years labour day march is on, and anyone who would like to protest against government policy this would be a good place to do it. This year should be a big turnout, so if you are feeling proactive, get out there, and maybe this will initiate some change in thinking, somewhere. Oh yes dont forget your cameras there is always great emotion and crowd shots to be taken.. Brett More fishing, more sport, more photo's Pentax 1stds
hey, I drank 10litres of water the other day! not counting the beer I had in the evening. OK there was some sugar and flavour and other stuff in some of the water, but its still water. I was saving petrol, I rode my bike home from work, it took me 11 hours. Gordon D70, D200, CP5700
Nothing will ever change the prices of oil because the oil companies operate on a world wide market.
Plus, there is no single Australian oil company who would go it alone to supply oil to Australia. Anyone attempting to set up one, would find that nobody would supply anything to them. So stop bleating about the price of fuel, build a bridge and get over it. Everyone in the world is in the same boat. We're all paying more. Think of the poor people in some Arabian states who have had a 100 percent increase in the price of their fuel. It's gone from 10 cents a litre to 20 cents. We've only had less than a 50 percent increase. People put way too much rubbish in signature blocks.
Here in NZ...
At todays exchange rate, that equates to AU 139.8 cents per litre of 95. Mind you, our GST rate is also 12.5% as opposed to 10% so that is some of the diffeence I guess. And yes, it really gets me how we pay GST on top of the petrol tax! On top of diesel we also have road user taxes (even on private vehicles) as well. Having said all the above, we are still somewhat better off for petrol prices than Europe!! On the downside, in parts of Europe its quite possible to live without a motor vehicle. Its possible in AKL, but definitely not easy. Smile; it makes people wonder what you have been up to.
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