Mr CREAN (2:42 PM) —My question is to the Prime Minister. I ask him whether he remembers saying to Alan Jones on 14 September 1998 about the price of petrol:

Prime Minister, are you aware that the following organisations have now said that petrol prices will rise as a result of the GST: the Business Council of Australia, the NFF, the Motor Trades Association, the Australian Automobile Association and the RACV? Prime Minister, are you saying that these organisations are now telling lies?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —What I am saying is that we have put in place an arrangement that represents all that any government can do to give effect to the commitment we made. I am also saying to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that, if he wants to quote to me oil companies, or he wants to quote to me business organisations, the basis of the argument that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is putting is that there are no cost savings at all. That is what the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is trying to assert. Indeed, many people in the oil industry are trying to assert that.

To use an example that the Acting Treasurer has used, when you carry petrol from a terminal to a service station, you do it in large trucks which are fuelled by diesel. That diesel will fall by 24c a litre as from 1 July. Is Mr McMaster saying, is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition saying and are other spokesmen for the oil industry saying that that will not represent cost savings for the Australian community? This represents an attempt by the Labor Party once again to avoid the responsibility to articulate any kind of alternative policy. On Melbourne radio this morning, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was asked 16 times to clarify what Labor would do with different aspects of the tax system. The only commitment he could give in response to those 16 questions was that the Labor Party would keep the GST.