PART of me wishes they’d just rip the Band-aid off and put the petrol prices up.
Don’t go crying foul on me yet – it’s only a small part. Because I know that every day of lower prices makes for another day of savings. And another day of savings means Tim Tams in the fridge.
But Jimmy Chalmers and his merry band of bean counters are making me a little bit paranoid with all this talk about fuel excise cuts being lifted.
“Don’t worry,” they say about a 23-cent reprieve that will no longer be a reprieve. “The prices won’t go up straight away. We’ve got a stack of fuel in reserve.” Oh, that’s alright then.
I’ve been trying to get my head around it. Some government-employed economist tells us the falling dollar is a good thing, and means we won’t be paying through the roof for fuel.
I’m not convinced. When I checked in to buy myself a new pair of fancy Nikes from a US website about a month ago, the Aussie dollar was cruising at around 76 cents. They wanted $30 of my hard-earned.
A couple of weeks later, our coin dives to 68 cents and all of a sudden they want me paying in Bitcoin.
While we do get a little bit of our oil from local basins somewhere in the outback – 9% in fact – I’m pretty sure the bulk of our oil brokers doing the sums in Singapore, South Korea and Japan aren’t going to settle for a money box full of Australian coinage as payment.
They’ll be wanting the greenback – or a conversion which equates to 100% USD – for their oil which by my lay-economics tells me we’ll be getting fleeced for as much as their greedy corporate coffers can cope with as our dollar makes its way through the floor and into the basement.
Meanwhile, I’m taking two trips to the doctor and a side hustle to the supermarket in my wheels, monitoring every service station I see in an attempt to save a couple of cents per litre.
Because, as of the weekend, I was buying E10 at $1.49. When the reserves run out and the excise kicks back in, we’re told we’ll be up for around $2.25.
So here I am pulling into a petrol station every 15km to top up. I tell no inkling of a lie when I say I pulled in for $7 worth of fuel the other day. You see, I’m determined to have a full tank of gas the minute they put the prices up.
It’s my way of beating the system, if only for a few minutes.
My $7 worth of fuel was about five litres, which on a rise of 75 cents a litre saves me $3.75 – one packet of Tim Tams and a pretty good deal.
But what I fail to understand – among many things “economics” – is why a 23-cent fuel excise increase leads to a 75-cent rise in petrol prices.
Somewhere between the government giving stock-listed fuel suppliers notice that they’re up for extra tax, and the person who decides whether we’re on down-cycle or up-cycle at the bowser, someone’s ripped us off 52 cents per litre.
On a 30-litre tank of fuel, that by my reckoning is five packets of Tim Tams that we’ve been dudded.
While the ACCC is busy managing its so-called level playing field, Albo’s found $19.45 a week for pensioners in the budget so we can all fill our boots with luxury items like food and rent, for example.
Couples like Wanda and I are luckier, because couples pick up just under $30 a week which Albo’s spin doctors kindly tell me is just under $60 a fortnight – sounds oh so much more when they put it like that.
Meanwhile, I’m stopping every 15 minutes for fuel, determined not to miss the jump when it happens. I’ll be the one waving my middle digit at the price board when it reads more than $2 and I’ve got no more room in my tank for their over-priced juice.
Until, of course, the car runs dry. Never mind, I’ll have temporarily beaten the system, and therein lies the satisfaction.
Hey Wanda, want to help me write a letter. I’d like to formally thank the ACCC for nothing. And Jimmy and Albo for trusting us with the country’s money. About time we got some reprieve instead of that darn supply chain. Damn diesel-guzzling trucks and airplanes can look after themselves.
