The NRMA has said that a planned two-day boycott of petrol stations will not affect the industry.
A Facebook event set up for the occasion, has attracted interest nationally.
As petrol prices seemingly continue to soar to 10-year highs as a result of global oil prices, motorists paying up to $1.65 per litre are reportedly fed up.
The Facebook event organiser Sabrina Lamont told the ABC: “A fair price should be a $1.15 if you do the calculation on a barrel price and compare the dollar price, and then take away the excise and GST. That is roughly what the price should be at”.
“They are breaking the country’s back with this. We are asking the whole nation not to enter a service station, a total boycott, whether independents or a major brand. Just do not buy fuel,” she said.
NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said the problem of a two-day strike was that some cities such as Adelaide were at the bottom of their cycle, meaning people who took part would miss the opportunity to get cheaper fuel, News.com.au reported.
“In cities like Canberra, Darwin and Hobart there’s never a cycle, it’s just always expensive, so at some point people need to fill up,” he said.
Mr Khoury said even if all 160,000 people chose not to fill up, “that’s not even a rounding error in terms of the overall size of the industry”. “We completely understand the public’s frustration,” he said.
“These are record high prices, in some of these areas we haven’t seen prices like this in 10 years. We get how difficult and frustrating it is, we are also acutely aware of the impact it’s having on the economy because our economy runs on fuel.”
Mr Khoury noted that prices were the result of global issues.
“We know oil prices have fallen so we should see some relief, 7-8 cents per litre in coming weeks, but it’s such a volatile sector and things can change overnight,” he said.