Mr CREAN (2:43 PM) —My question again is to the Treasurer. I refer to his last answer on petrol, in which he repeated a claim made on the Today program last week, where he said:

Treasurer, didn't your own prices watchdog, the ACCC, find that on the day following the introduction of the GST petrol prices actually increased in regional New South Wales, regional Victoria, regional Queensland, regional South Australia and the Northern Territory?

Mr Hockey interjecting—

Mr SPEAKER —The Minister for Financial Services and Regulation! I have not allowed the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to make that sort of comment. I require you to withdraw it as well.

Mr Hockey —I withdraw.

Mr SPEAKER —The Minister for Financial Services and Regulation has taken the action requested of him.

Mr CREAN —Treasurer, is this why the member for Hume told you last week, `Get a life, Peter. Start thinking about the people out there who are hurting'?

Mr COSTELLO (Treasurer) —I thank the honourable member for his question but, as usual, he completely misleads.

Mr COSTELLO —No, the ACCC is actually right; you are wrong. The ACCC press release headed `Petrol price movements on 1 July' reads as follows:

Petrol price movements on 1 July—major capital city petrol prices have, on average, fallen.

Mr SPEAKER —The Manager of Opposition Business is not being aided by his leader or by his deputy leader or by members on the government frontbench.

Mr McMullan —Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My point of order goes directly to relevance. We know that the Treasurer has not been to a region for a long time, but the question was explicitly about regional petrol prices and he has not referred to those at all.

Mr SPEAKER —The Treasurer was referring to petrol prices. He had not concluded his answer and, for that reason, I had not taken any action.

Mr COSTELLO —I was asked about what I said on the Today show and what I said in my previous answer, which was that the ACCC has found that, on average, petrol prices had either been the same or had reduced. That is precisely what the ACCC said on 1 July—that, on average, petrol prices had fallen. If it were the case that a GST increased petrol prices, how would they, on average, fall across capital cities?

Mr SPEAKER —The Manager of Opposition Business is granted a great deal of courtesy from the chair, and the chair expects some of it to be reciprocated.

Mr Crean —Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order which goes to relevance again. His own quote was, `Petrol prices were either stable or overall fell'. There was no mention of `average'. Why don't you talk about the regions?

Mr SPEAKER —The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. There is no point of order.

Mr COSTELLO —So now the big point is: when you say `average' it means different from `overall'. That is his knockout point: when you say `overall' it is completely different from `on average'. `Overall' means `on average'. It goes through all of those capital cities. It says that on average they fell. The GST came in. If the GST were a cause of a 10c or 15c increase, how was it from 30 June to 1 July that prices were on average the same or fell? How could it be in any capital city that that would be the case? How could it be the case that the change of taxation did not lead to a change of price? What actually happened was that, over the course of the months of July and August, as the world price increased it put petrol prices up in the United States, in Europe and in Japan, none of whom had a new GST introduced according to Australian legislation. I would have thought the real question for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition would be: how did the Australian GST lift petrol prices in the United States? How did the Australian GST lift prices in Europe? How did it lift prices in Japan? It did not.