Tasmanian motorists are facing higher fuel prices after the federal government’s fuel excise discount ended, with wholesale costs already driving increases at the bowser.
Today’s average diesel price across the state according to the FuelCheck TAS app was $2.48, up from $2.03 this time last month.
Unleaded was $2.06, up from $1.81 this time last month.
The federal fuel excise is a tax applied to petrol and diesel sold in Australia.
It was temporarily reduced in April from 52.6 cents to 20.6 cents a litre as part of a package aimed at easing cost-of-living pressures and responding to the oil crisis caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The discount was later extended to August 2, but reduced to 16 cents a litre before expiring, with the excise returning to its full rate of 52.6 cents a litre from today.
Nathan Thurlow, general manager of Tasmanian fuel distributor and retailer Tas Petroleum, said his company raised prices by four or five cents this morning but was trying to hold off further increases as long as possible.
“The wholesale price for diesel is sitting at $2.45 today and we’re selling fuel to the retail and to the public at that price, which usually is a margin above the wholesale price,” he told Pulse.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed the measure would not continue.
“It has played a really important role helping to take some of the sting out of the cost-of-living pressures,” he said.
“It was never the government’s intention for that to be permanent.”
Thurlow said the return of the excise only accounts for part of the pain at the pump.
“The wholesale price of diesel has come up 48 cents already throughout July and the gasoline price has come up 20 cents,” he said.
“Diesel’s increased in the last month now with the excise close to 80 cents and gasoline close to 40 cents.”
Some major fuel retailers lifted prices by 10 cents in a single day on Monday, though Thurlow said prices in the state’s north had mostly held steady while the south saw earlier rises.
He said he did not expect prices to return to the peak seen around Easter, when the wholesale diesel price hit $3.30 a litre, partly because oil companies have diversified their supply sources.
“Major oil companies are bringing cargoes in from other places across the world and people have worked out that we’re not only relying on the Middle East,” he said.
