Jacob Saulwick, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22/08/07

Shopper dockets - which promise up to four cents a litre off petrol
prices - are "a sham" that help supermarket chains and oil companies
constrict competition at the bowser, a powerful new inquiry into
petrol prices has been told.

Since the docket system was introduced in 2003, the number of service
stations across the country has fallen by about a third, as businesses
that are not able to offer the discounts have been forced to close.

And the dockets deliver no real benefits to consumers, because
supermarkets increase grocery prices to offset the cheaper petrol, the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's latest inquiry into
petrol prices and the structure of the industry was told yesterday.

In the early 1970s there were some 20,000 petrol stations across
Australia.

There are now just 6000, and the number of stations not affiliated
with the big brands BP, Caltex, Mobil and Shell is decreasing from
about 7.5 per cent of the market.

"The reason we are concerned by the shopper-docket program is that is
one mechanism that supports that concentration," the senior policy
adviser at the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia,
Gerard van Rijswijk, said.

"We have a sham system out there where people think they are getting a
discount. It's akin to predatory pricing, a sanctioned predatory
pricing."

The commission's latest inquiry into petrol prices was launched after
petrol companies were seen to be withholding cheaper international oil
prices from consumers.

The executive director of the Motor Trades Association, Michael
Delaney, said competition could be further eroded if Shell and Caltex,
with their supermarket partners Coles and Woolworths, increased their
share of the market. Shell and Caltex were using shopper-docket
schemes to drive out Mobil and BP, Mr Delaney suggested.

The chief executive officer of the Service Station Association, Ron
Bowden, said his organisation had tried to set up a rival shopper-
docket scheme. But the scheme had failed to attract much interest from
independent service stations, he said.

This prompted the commission's chairman, Graham Samuel, to say he
would not intervene just because independent stores did not put enough
effort in to set up their own scheme. "We are always reluctant to stop
processes occurring in the competitive market," he said.

Shopper dockets are just one of the new developments in the industry
which will be examined by the inquiry.

Underlining the sense of crisis felt by many independent service
stations, Mr Delaney said there would soon be no independent service
station operators left for him to represent. But Mr Samuel asked
whether having fewer independent stations would weaken competition.
Smaller players tended to have their prices set for them by large oil
suppliers, and as such did not add much "competitive tension" to the
industry.

The inquiry, which has unprecedented powers to compel witnesses to
give evidence, will hold 18 hearings in 12 cities.