Ninety-three service stations in New South Wales have been issued on-the-spot fines for misrepresenting their prices amid Australia’s fuel crisis – although none are facing penalties for price gouging.
A two-week compliance blitz has seen inspectors visit about 75% – or just under 1,800 – of stations registered with fuel price app FuelCheck in NSW, issuing 93 penalty infringement notices, the state government said on Sunday.
Consequences for non-compliance include on-the-spot fines of $1,100, or court penalties of up to $22,000 for individuals and $110,000 for corporations.
Under NSW’s fair trading standards, service stations must update their prices online via FuelCheck in real time to match the bowser. Most of the 93 infringement notices issued for price mismatching, with 23 issued to Sydney operators, and the remaining 70 in regional NSW.
The NSW government, which is providing FuelCheck with an additional $2.2m in funding, has urged the public to report fuel price issues including exploitative pricing, although Guardian Australia understands none of the NSW infringement notices were issued for price gouging.
The Labor government has rejected calls by the state opposition to require retailers to cap fuel prices every 24 hours, similar to the systems in Victoria and Western Australia, under which retailers have until 2pm local time to set their fuel price for the following day.
The NSW energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said last month that the policy was “basically what already happens in terms of FuelCheck”, but the website does not require retailers to fix prices, only to report them accurately.
Fuel prices have dropped since a cut to the federal excise by half kicked in on Wednesday, as part of the Albanese government’s emergency fuel measures in response to fallout from the Middle East war.
An agreement by state and territory leaders on Thursday to pass on the increased GST revenue from fuel sales back to consumers has resulted in a reduction of as much as 32 cents per litre of petrol or diesel.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which has announced a crackdown on price gouging following the conflict in the Middle East, has called on retailers to pass on cuts as quickly as possible, saying it would “closely analyse price movements”.
On Thursday, it also issued notices to businesses in South Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia requiring them to justify “fuel surcharges” imposed on deliveries to remote areas.
About 2,400 fuel stations are registered to FuelCheck in NSW, a requirement under state law. On Sunday, the WA government announced it had expanded its own FuelWatch program, which includes price fixing, to require every retailer in the state to register, and increased penalties for non-compliance with reporting requirements from $1,000 to $4,000.
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