ACCC calls emergency meeting with fuel suppliers – as it happened

Thanks for joining us today. We’ll be back tomorrow. Until then, here were today’s top stories.

• One of the two women from the Iranian football squad granted a humanitarian visa overnight has changed their mind and decided to go back to Iran, home affairs minister Tony Burke confirmed.

• Queensland senator Matt Canavan was elected as the new Nationals leader the day after David Littleproud stood down as leader.

• Two Queensland protesters have been arrested for allegedly violating the state’s ban on the phrase “from the river to the sea”.

• Foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, confirmed Australian embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv and the consulate in Dubai all physically closed in the last week.

• The authority that runs Naplan apologised “unreservedly” for a disruption to a “significant number” of schools on its first day, as some students had the standardised test postponed while others did not.

• Two former public servants referred to the anti-corruption watchdog by the royal commission into robodebt have been found to have engaged in serious corrupt conduct while the former prime minister Scott Morrison has been cleared.

• The Sydney fashion designer behind the Katie Perry label has won her epic trademark dispute with US pop star Katy Perry, after a legal battle lasting almost 17 years.

Consumer group calls for fruit and veggie pricing reforms after discovering weight variations of up to 94%

The Queensland Consumers Association (QCA) has again called for supermarkets to be forced to display per-kilogram pricing on fruits and vegetables after uncovering significant discrepancies between different pieces of produce.

Guardian Australia recently reported several examples of price discrepancies by supermarkets charging fruit and vegetables per item, or “per each”, rather than by weight, leaving shoppers short-changed.

The QCA conducted its own investigation at one of the major supermarkets where it found, for example, that cauliflowers priced at $5.50 each in one supermarket ranged in weight from 400g to 775g – a 94% difference.

This meant the effective price per kilogram ranged from $13.75 for the lightest
cauliflower to $7.10 for the heaviest, the consumer group says.

The QCA found a similar example in continental cucumbers, which were priced at $1.70 each but varied in weight between 235g to 395g – a 68% difference – resulting in effective prices from $7.23 to $4.30 a kilo.

The QCA spokesperson, Ian Jarratt, said:

These variations mean consumers who need to, or if the heaviest pieces have been sold are forced to, select lighter items can end up paying much more per kg than those choosing heavier ones.

Retailers should make it easier for customers to quickly compare prices and value, and ensure consumers are treated fairly.

QCA has urged the government to amend the trade measurement legislation and unit pricing code – which regulate how grocery prices are set – to reduce, or remove, the ability of retailers to price fruit and vegetables only per piece.

The supermarkets have argued that per-item pricing can make it easier for customers to quickly budget for, and choose, the number of items they need.

You can read more here:

The competition and consumer watchdog will “urgently” meet with fuel industry players to demand detailed explanations for the dramatic moves in petrol prices since the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Anna Brakey, an ACCC commissioner, said in a statement that “we are calling the industry into an emergency meeting to explain their actions during this period of volatility”.

At that meeting we will reiterate our expectations to industry and ask that they explain to the Australian community the reasons behind recent price spikes.

We are also inviting representatives of motoring organisations representing the voice of consumers to be part of these discussions.

The ACCC is starting weekly market updates to give motorists more transparency around pricing behaviour amid a spike in demand as Australians rush to fill up ahead of feared future price rises or even shortages.

Farmers and fishers have warned that fuel shortages are putting their crops and catches at risk, and the regulator said it was also looking at measures that could help ease the diesel distribution areas in regional and rural areas.

Unleaded fuel prices have jumped by 30 cents a litre in major cities like Sydney since the start of the conflict, and by nearly 50 cents in regional centres Newcastle, Toowoomba and Mt Gambier.

Karvelas asks what Kovacic thinks about Matt Canavan’s belief in assimilation.

The senator says:

I’m a product of multicultural Australia. My parents came here in the 1960s …

The people that come should have values that are aligned with our own, that have the best interests of Australia at heart … obviously not to import hatreds here.

Kovacic, a first generation Australian, says:

The reality is that we need to have a balanced approach to all of our immigration.

We support the humanitarian visas that were issued to young women. I think that’s an important part of who we are country that we don’t turn people here away when they’re asylum in circumstances like this one.

We have other issues in our country in relation to the sustainability of immigration.

The assistant defence minister, Peter Khalil, and Maria Kovacic, Liberal senator for New South Wales have joined the show.

They are discussing the Iranian women’s football team.

Karvelas asks Khalil about the “many other women who would like asylum” from Iran.

Khalil says:

Obviously these women, these soccer players, [are] very brave, very courageous. The complexity of their decision, if they stay, it puts at risk their family of imprisonment, torture and worse, execution.

If they go back, same thing that they face as well as their families.

In some senses, these women, because they were actually in Australia playing the tournament, they had the opportunity to take that choice.

There are hundreds of thousands of women who have protested against the Islamic regime over many years, since Mahsa Amini was killed for wearing the veil incorrectly. Schoolgirls, brave, courageous, standing up to the regime, and have been brutally repressed. They killed 36,000 of their own citizens in a couple of days. That’s one estimate, it could be more than that …

Karvelas asks how confident Leeser is that the Iranian women’s football team are safe, after their location was revealed to the Iranian embassy.

Leeser says:

I’m sure the minister will be trying his best to ensure their safety … there will be no doubt questions in estimates about the exact handling of the women.

I wanted them to be given the opportunity to claim asylum, to be in this country, because what do we know about the Iranian regime?

We know it’s one of the worst human rights abusers in the world.

Iranian football team’s handlers should have been placed in immigration detention, Liberal MP says

Now Liberal frontbencher Julian Leeser, who represents “an electorate with a high number of Iranian Australians”, is speaking on the ABC.

First, he is asked about whether he is satisfied that one of the Iranian football team members who accepted a humanitarian visa, before changing her mind, was “dealt with properly”.

Leeser says:

By the reports of the minister, that she did [change her mind].

The only thing I asked for that didn’t occur was I felt that some of those handlers should have had their visas cancelled and be put in immigration detention and removed from the country.

I think it’s good that six of the seven women have chosen to stay in Australia. The seventh woman, it is her choice and that’s one of the things that, in Australia, we afford people – the opportunity to make a choice, and she’s chosen to go back.

Karvelas mentions opinion polls indicating the Nationals are “bleeding” votes to One Nation, asking whether Canavan’s party is “differentiating”.

Canavan says:

I certainly don’t want to introduce elements of race to our political discussion.

Now, what we need to do is, and what the Nationals are best at, is focus on practical things we can do to make Australians’ lives better. And there’s no doubt we’ve been taking far too many people from too many different cultures …

I believe that there is a merit in assimilation, that people who come to this country should be expected to integrate with … our way of life.

Karvelas asks Canavan about Pauline Hanson’s accusation that he had joined “the woke pile-on” (joining the likes of “the ABC, the Guardian and left-wing fact-checkers who started a war against One Nation”.)

Canavan says he hasn’t seen Hanson’s comments:

But maybe Pauline can give it but she can’t take it. I mean, welcome to politics, Pauline.

I don’t think Pauline’s approach is going to be the best for this country. I don’t think over her 30 years in Australian politics she has delivered tangible benefits to the Australian people.

I think sometimes her comments – not just me, Barnaby thinks this as well … her comments on Muslim people were out of line.

My view is that the better approach is to treat all Australians equally.