I HAVE been wracking my brain trying to come up with a sensible reason behind our petrol prices in Canberra being up to 30 cents a litre higher than what’s on offer in Sydney and Melbourne.

There isn’t one, other than we’re being taken as fools.

In the past month the larger capital cities have benefited from serious petrol price discounting and we in Canberra have paid for it. After all, everyone’s happy to make a big quid out of those fat public servants, because as you know, everyone earns a fortune in Canberra!

The ACCC, the ACT Government and the NRMA continue to suggest to me that this situation has arisen because we don’t have many genuinely independent petrol outlets in Canberra. Our market is dominated by Caltex and Shell who have linked arms with Woolworths and Coles. It works exceptionally well for those retailers, but not so well for us.

I was speaking to an independent operator from Melbourne with outlets close to Woolies’ petrol stations. He told me that when the whole shopper docket thing started, those stations lost 15 per cent of their turnover overnight and those close to both Coles and Woolies petrol outlets lost 30 per cent.

Without a high volume, they found it more difficult to fight the majors on price. Consumers adopted the shopper-docket concept in the belief it would save them money and, in the short term, it did. In the longer term, it succeeds only in clearing out the competition and providing a virtual duopoly for Caltex and Shell.

When Mobil exited the Australian petroleum landscape, the ACCC should have broken the chain up and distributed it to genuine independent operators. They claim not to have the power to do this and all of those outlets ended up under the 7/11 banner.

Here in Canberra, the 7/11s mimic the other two majors on price and United follows suit. All of them are happy to take a higher margin out of Canberra because Canberra just lays back, thinks of England, and takes it.

I’m sick of it and I’m sure you are, too. We would cop a five or seven-cent differential between here and Sydney, but we shouldn’t have to wear 30 cents.

We need a petrol price revolution in this town and we need it now.

Through my radio station, I’ve started an online petition to try to force a change. You can find the petition through the station website www.2cc.net.au .

Together, I think we can make a change.

Mark Parton is the breakfast announcer on 2CC.