12:00a.m. 9th May 2008

| Peter Gardiner and AAP

The price of Coles Express petrol on the Sunshine Coast plummeted hours after claims the supermarket petrol retailer’s discount dockets were taking its customers for a ride.

Noosa Junction Shell Coles Express outlet, which had been retailing its unleaded petrol at $1.45.9 a litre, defied conventional weekly cycles by suddenly dropping the pump price to $1.39.9 yesterday.

RACQ spokesman Gary Fites said this was a “most unusual” move for what was peak price time.

“Usually they spike upwards at the peak (Wednesday/Thursday) before gradually dropping back away,” he said.

The Noosa downward trend came after Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel accused Coles of giving its supermarket shoppers nothing by offering a four cents a litre petrol discount on already inflated petrol pump prices.

Elsewhere on the Sunshine Coast, fuel at the cheapest discounters as recorded by Motor Mouth was selling at between 134.5 cents a litre and $1.34.9.

At 10am at Noosa Coles Express, customers using discount dockets were paying $1.41.9 a litre. After the drop, docket holders were still paying $1.35.9 – above the independent discounters.

The Noosa price backflip also came as the Queensland branch of the Transport Workers Union called for a boycott of Coles Express petrol outlets, with union secretary Hughie Williams accusing Coles of “ripping off hard-working Australians”.

Mr Samuel believed Coles’ pricing strategy was catching motorists off-guard.

“What we’ve discovered is that, in a significant number of their sites, they’re first to increase the price,” he said.

“These petrol price discount vouchers that they have been using for some time are effectively being neutralised by the high prices they’re charging.”

Mr Samuel advised consumers to carefully watch competing prices because some big variations – up to 20 cents a litre – were available.

Maroochydore independent fuel retailer Ron Chambers, of Neumann Petroleum, said the whole set-up made him “hot under the collar”.

“Coles Express may go to $1.45 on a Wednesday afternoon first and we may still be at $1.30, but people still drive by us to get their four cents a litre discount,” he said.

Mr Chambers said there simply was not a four cents saving to be offered with retailers making little more than three cents a litre profit.

Coles said its fuel prices moved regularly as part of the normal fuel cycle and that all fuel retailers adjusted their prices both up and down and responded to competition.