Explanatory Statement
Statutory Rules 1985 No. 6
Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Regulations (Amendment)
Issued by Authority of the Minister of State for Industry, Technology and Commerce
The Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act 1980 (the Sites Act) was substantially amended by the Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Amendment Act 1984, which came into operation on 1 January 1985. The amendments made to the Sites Act necessitate consequential amendments to the Sites Act Regulations.
These regulations effect those changes as follows:
(a) regulations 1 and 2 are machinery provisions
(b) regulation 3 repeals two existing regulations and substitutes three new regulations;
(i) Regulation 3 specifies six oil companies for the purposes of the new definition of “prescribed oil company” in sub-section 3(1) of the Act, which is defined to mean a corporation that is specified in the regulations for the purposes of the definition. The six oil companies specified for the purposes of the definition are the six major refiner-marketers in Australia; Ampol-Limited, the British Petroleum Company of Australia Limited, Caltex Oil (Australia) Pty Limited, Esso Australia Limited, Mobil Oil Australia Limited, and Shell Australia Limited.
(ii) Regulation 4 implements the restrictions imposed by Section 10 of the Act on the number of retail sites a prescribed oil company may operate. A quota of permitted retail sites is allocated to each of the six specified oil companies, similar to the quota arrangements in the current Schedule to the Act, with the exception of the figures for the British Petroleum Company of Australia Limited (BP). The quota numbers for that Company include the previous numbers for Amoco Holdings Pty Limited, to reflect the takeover of Amoco by BP on 2 July 1984.
(iii) Regulation 4A specifies the appropriate forms for the purposes of the returns provision of Section 11 of the Act. The forms are set out in Schedule 2 to the regulations. Two new forms have been added and the existing two forms have been amended slightly to reflect the change in the application of the Act from a daily to a monthly basis and the new term for companies subject to the Act, ie prescribed oil company.
(c) regulations 4 and 5 effect changes to the Regulations resulting from the repeal of the Schedule to the Act and the introduction of the two new Schedules to the Regulations specifying the number of retail sites as imposed by Regulation 4 and the forms required for the purposes of Regulation 4A.