The ACCC’s latest petrol monitoring report has confirmed petrol prices are now at a four-year high in Australia’s five major cities.

It’s thought a number of factors are responsible for the hip-pocket pain at the bowser, including high crude oil prices, exchange rate movements and sharp increases in the retail market.

Either way, commuters aren’t happy.

With respective fuel check apps failing to put downward pressure on prices and a lack of competition in the market, Michael McLaren is calling for government intervention to remedy the price pain.

“Even as a free market believer, a liberal conservative, I say we need government intervention in this market,” he says.

“The market is not working. We are being ripped off at the bowser. Government can’t stand by and watch their citizens being ripped off.”

“I think there is an increasing role for the state here. They need to say that if the private sector doesn’t lift their game, if the corporations don’t stop ripping people off, we’ll get involved. Otherwise, why have government, if when the people are being fleeced, the representatives don’t man up?”

Listen as Michael speaks with Associate Professor Nicolas Dr Roos, a fuel expert, from Sydney University.