The Queensland government is in talks with the state's peak motoring body to introduce real-time fuel price disclosures after repeatedly ruling out any action on the issue.
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Energy Minister Anthony Lynham and Transport Minister Mark Bailey on Monday met with RACQ's head of public policy Rebecca Michael to discuss ways to lower fuel prices across the state.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her cabinet have previously resisted calls from RACQ and the Liberal National Party opposition for a price monitoring scheme.
"I think there is a seriousness about this issue in terms of working with the industry to find out how we can give consumers more information," Ms Palaszczuk told reporters on Tuesday before flying to the US on a trade mission.
She said it was the start of a conversation between the ministers and the RACQ to see if the motoring body or another third party were able to set a system up.
"We don't want to duplicate any existing real-time disclosures that are happening out there."
Ms Palaszczuk acknowledged retailers were not compelled to make real-time disclosures, but would not be drawn on whether she would consider moves to make it compulsory.
"I'm not going to be saying one way or the other at the moment," she said.
Hours later, Acting Premier Jackie Trad threw her support behind real-time monitoring, but warned it was fraught with red tape and related costs that could be passed onto consumers.
"Real-time monitoring does come with some issues and some problems so before we commit to anything in that area we need to actually identify the problems and make sure that we're not creating even more cost for consumers," she said.
Ms Trad also wouldn't concede the government had changed its stance, and questioned the state's role in monitoring a private market.
The talks come after the state government repeatedly ruled out introducing a price monitoring program and urged the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to take the lead on the issue.
The ACCC has insisted it does not have a role in regulating fuel prices, merely monitoring them.
LNP leader Deb Frecklington welcomed the signal the state government's position was changing but said it was critical that discussions went beyond just talk.
"The LNP understands the pain of high fuel prices, which is why we support real time price monitoring to ease the pressure on the household budget," she said.
Labor needed to adopt the LNP's policy of real-time price monitoring, Ms Frecklington said.
Australian Associated Press