Mr CAUSLEY —My question is directed to the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation. Can the minister inform the House of the outcome of last Friday's meeting of the Ministerial Council on Consumer Affairs?

Mr HOCKEY (Financial Services and Regulation) —I would like to thank my colleague the member for Page for his question. The Ministerial Council on Consumer Affairs met last Friday in Hobart and a number of items were placed on the agenda. The council is made up of the fair trading and consumer affairs ministers of all the states and territories, together with the fair trading minister of New Zealand and me in my capacity as minister for consumer affairs.

The New South Wales representative, Mr John Watkins, asked that two items be specifically addressed on the agenda. The first one was to deal with minimum standards in banking and discussions about an AAPR, an average annual percentage rate—an apple by apple comparison of interest rates—which is in place in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. In the discussions, it became patently clear that the New South Wales Minister for Fair Trading was both ill informed and improperly researched. He obviously came to the meeting trying to use the ministerial council as a political forum rather than trying to find real outcomes in relation to minimum banking standards and petrol pricing. When the Minister for Fair Trading in New South Wales came into the meeting with a so-called 10-point plan on petrol pricing, it was pointed out to him that in fact he had failed three of the 10 points that he was putting forward.

In the first place, he talked about mandatory boards outside petrol stations. Why did it take New South Wales three years to implement the recommendation of the ACCC report about the proper display of petrol prices? He was running around the country talking about this great initiative from New South Wales that had taken them only three years to implement, and he was lecturing other states about proper display of pricing in relation to petrol! Why is it that the zoning laws and proper opening hours laws in New South Wales at times lag behind those of other states? Why did Woolworths have to open up a petrol station for Albury 100 kilometres away in Tarcutta? Because they could not get proper zoning in Albury. Here we have the New South Wales Labor minister, John Watkins, coming into a federal council meeting lecturing his Labor Party colleagues from across Australia and lecturing me about proper petrol price disclosure when he in fact failed his own test. It got to the stage where the Labor chairman of the meeting called Mr Watkins petulant. They were embarrassed. He and the Queensland minister were clearly embarrassed with the behaviour of the representative of the New South Wales Right. Clearly he had not gone to the member for Watson's academy on caucus behaviour.