The ACCC Numbers That Show Where July's Fuel Rises Really Came From

The ACCC Numbers That Show Where July's Fuel Rises Really Came From

If you've filled the tank in the past fortnight and walked away muttering, you're not imagining it. Capital city petrol has jumped 18.1 cents a litre since the end of June, and diesel has climbed even harder. Here's what most people don't realise though: a small team in Canberra has been counting every one of those cents, servo by servo, and the paper trail they published this week tells you exactly where your money went.

The Report Nobody Reads but Everybody Should

On 17 July the ACCC quietly released its nineteenth weekly fuel price monitoring report. Weekly is the operative word. The watchdog used to look at the fuel market quarterly, but it switched to weekly reporting back in March when the Middle East conflict started rattling oil markets. It has published a steady drumbeat of numbers ever since, covering every capital city and more than 190 regional locations.

This latest instalment covers the fortnight that mattered. From 1 July, the federal government restored half of the temporary fuel excise cut, putting 16 cents a litre back onto the tax. Once GST gets layered on top, the maximum impact at the pump works out to 17.6 cents a litre.

So what actually happened? According to the ACCC, average retail petrol across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth rose 18.1 cents a litre between 30 June and 15 July, landing at 169.6 cents. Diesel rose 19.1 cents to 192.6.

Both numbers sit above that 17.6 cent ceiling. Cue the pitchforks? Not quite. The full story is more interesting than a simple gouging headline.

A Half Cent Over, and Fourteen Towns Worth Watching

Half a cent above the tax impact, averaged across five cities and thousands of stations, sits within the noise of normal price cycles. Petrol in the big east coast capitals moves through discounting cycles that swing 20 to 40 cents from trough to peak, so a national average landing slightly over the theoretical ceiling doesn't prove anyone got greedy.

The regional picture actually runs the other way. Across the 190 or so country towns the ACCC tracks, petrol rose just 10 cents on average over the same fortnight, reaching 178.7 cents. Around 84 per cent of those locations saw increases of 16 cents or less. Regional servos turn their stock over more slowly, so fuel bought under the old tax rate was still flowing through their tanks well into July. The rest of the increase is still filtering through, which is worth remembering if your local servo lifts its board this week for no obvious reason.

But 14 regional locations recorded petrol increases beyond 17.6 cents. On the diesel side, 61 locations went past that threshold, and five went beyond 28.7 cents. Those are the postcodes where the watchdog will be asking questions, because the ACCC flagged exactly this before the change. Commissioner Anna Brakey put retailers on notice in late June: "The ACCC expects that fuel retailers will not attempt to take advantage of this increase in excise."

Worth being clear about what the ACCC can and can't do here. It doesn't set petrol prices, and it can't cap them. What it can do is take action against retailers who make false or misleading claims about why prices moved, or who engage in anticompetitive behaviour. The weekly reports are the receipts, published for everyone to see.

Why Diesel Is the Real Story Here

Now for the part that hasn't made headlines. Buried in the report is a number that matters more than any of the retail figures: wholesale diesel at the terminal gate rose 28.7 cents a litre over the fortnight. Retail diesel only rose 19.1 cents.

Sit with that gap for a second. Diesel retailers are currently wearing nearly 10 cents a litre of cost increase that hasn't reached the pump yet. Industry contacts tell me nobody in fuel retail absorbs that kind of margin squeeze for long. Those cents are coming, tax change or no tax change.

The cause sits offshore. Gasoil, the international benchmark that drives Australian diesel prices, jumped 13 per cent in the week to 15 July alone, reaching around 120 Australian cents a litre before a drop of tax or retail margin is added. Petrol's benchmark rose a comparatively gentle 3 per cent. Brent crude pushed back above the levels it held before the conflict began, after the United States renewed its naval blockade of Iran on 14 July.

The practical upshot for your wallet: if you drive a diesel ute, run a farm, or live in a regional town where diesel is the default, keep a close eye on diesel prices over the next few weeks. Regional diesel already averages 199 cents a litre. The wholesale maths says there's more to come before the next tax change even lands.

We've Run This Experiment Before

Going back a few years, Australia tested exactly this scenario. In March 2022 the Morrison government halved fuel excise by 22.1 cents a litre for six months as pump prices spiked following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. When the full tax snapped back that September, plenty of commentators predicted servos would use the confusion to pad their margins.

The ACCC monitored that restoration too, and its verdict was that the tax flowed through roughly as designed, over a week or two as cheaper old stock sold down, with the usual price cycles muddying the picture along the way. No widespread gouging, despite the headlines. Early signs suggest this restoration is following the same script.

To put our tax bill in perspective, the full excise rate sits at a touch over 50 cents a litre when no relief is in place. British motorists pay roughly double that in fuel duty. American drivers pay a federal petrol tax that converts to under 8 Australian cents a litre. On fuel tax, Australia sits squarely in the middle of the pack among wealthy countries, which surprises most people who assume we're at the extreme end.

The Second Instalment Lands on 2 August

Here's the bit to plan around. What happened on 1 July was only half of the restoration. The remaining 16 cents of excise returns on 2 August, and with GST that's another potential 17.6 cents a litre on both fuels.

Layer that on current prices and the arithmetic gets uncomfortable. Capital city petrol at 169.6 cents plus the August change points to averages in the high 180s, before any cycle peak or further international movement. Regional diesel at 199 cents could push through 215.

A few practical moves between now and then. Time your fills around the cycle: the big capitals sit at different points of their discounting cycles at any given moment, and our best time to fill up guide tracks where each city is placed. Filling at a cycle trough in late July effectively banks the tax saving one last time.

Compare before you drive in. Commissioner Brakey's own advice was to "use fuel price apps and websites to compare prices at different retail sites before filling up". The gap between the cheapest and dearest servo in the same suburb routinely runs to 20 cents a litre, which is bigger than the entire tax change everyone is upset about. The interactive fuel map shows you that gap in real time.

And watch the trend lines rather than the headlines. Our price trends page tracks weekly movement in every state, which is exactly how you spot whether your area has absorbed the full tax change yet or still has a rise queued up.

What to Remember

The July excise restoration flowed through to pumps more or less as designed, and the watchdog's numbers largely clear servos of gouging so far. Fourteen petrol locations and 61 diesel locations exceeded the tax impact, and the ACCC is examining them individually. Diesel has close to 10 cents of wholesale cost still working its way to the pump. And the second 17.6 cent instalment arrives on 2 August, so any tank you fill cheaply before then is money in your pocket.

The fuel industry rarely publishes its receipts. Right now, courtesy of a weekly ACCC report most people never read, it has to. Keep an eye on this space.