I said it the other day and I’ll say it again now: it’s extremely disappointing that the dominant political debate in this country at present (and for the foreseeable future) is about slashing a teensy four or five cents from the skyrocketing price of petrol by fiddling with taxes. This issue should’ve been addressed ten years ago because now there’s nothing we can do in the short-to-medium term about our dependence on oil or its underlying price.

But both major parties have placed themselves on this ridiculous battlefield, both are looking like dickheads, and both are proposing bad policies. Brendan Nelson and the opposition have gone into middle Australia worship and battler empathy overdrive, demonstrated excruciatingly by the good doctor in Parliament the other day. And Labor, desperate to look like they’re doing something when there’s basically nothing that can be done, has released their kneejerk FuelWatch policy.

I can’t believe I’m going to say this but FuelWatch stops the market from delivering the cheapest prices by restricting the function of competition. Putting aside collusion (which has rarely been proven and is monitored like a hawk by the ACCC) petrol retailers at present monitor their prices throughout the day and react to other outlets’ prices as necessary. FuelWatch prevents service stations from lowering (or raising, to be fair) their price after their initial price point is set the night before, therefore preventing them from reacting to a lower price on offer down the road.

I feel dirty.

Besides, the majority of analysis seems to indicate that FuelWatch, at best, delivers very little in terms of cheaper petrol and, at worst, raises prices marginally. Bad policy no matter which way you look at it.

Labor got itself into this mess by campaigning on cost of living issues and their subsequent need to “do something” once they took office. It’s a shame that the first major blow struck against Labor this term was mostly their own fault.