IT’S hard to know whether motorists would feel less or more outraged by petrol prices if they understood the thinking behind them.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Drivers shake their heads in frustration at the seemingly random ways in which prices move about, but perhaps ignorance in this case really is bliss.
Because when cities only a short distance apart have a significant petrol price discrepancy, or when prices rise in the days leading up to a public holiday long weekend, or when an independent retailer is able to offer a lower price that the big chains can’t seem to find the margin to match, it’s hard to imagine anything more complicated is behind it all than pure opportunism.
Plenty of people around Dubbo would be furrowing their brow at January fuel prices. The city ranked 44 out of 57 locations in NSW on the NRMA’s weekly list petrol prices for the week ended January 29.
The average price of unleaded petrol in Dubbo for that week had dropped by four cents from a peak of 145.1c on January 12. It was ranging between 139.5 to 141.9 cents per litre, but was still almost a cent above the Central West’s 140.36c average.
And the same petrol in Narromine was at 134.4c and Wellington’s price was 126.9c. It was only 123.9c in Bourke!
Dubbo’s average price was lower than Parkes (143.9), Bathurst (142.3) and Orange (141.3), although it was not as competitive as Forbes (138.2).
An NRMA spokesperson said “it’s not unreasonable to say Dubbo motorists are getting ripped off”.
The price variations don’t seem to make much sense, as the NRMA said.
Repeated calls for a government inquiry into regional fuel pricing have been ignored.
The curiosity about prices is that, in an age when every consumer feels more empowered than ever before, motorists still allow the service stations to make all the rules.
The same people who keep a close eye on their grocery prices at the checkout, and are more than willing to support a different supermarket if they feel they are getting a raw deal, will return to the same service station each week no matter what price it is offering.
It might be habit or apathy, or it could be the difference only adds up to a few cents a litre and it hardly seems worth it.
But it is worth it – if only to remind the petrol businesses that it is the consumers who hold the power.