It's been 18 years since the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission recommended the ACT government implement a public information system to report regularly on the movement of fuel prices.
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That never happened.
Fast-forward to 2019 and there's a sense of deja vu, after a Legislative Assembly committee recommended this week that the government should make ACT service stations post fuel prices online in real time.
Let's hope it's second time lucky and the government walks the walk on this occasion, following months of talking tough on the issue in which Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Consumer Affairs Minister Shane Rattenbury have both said Canberrans were being "gouged" at the pump.
Independent price-tracking websites like MotorMouth and Petrol Spy do a honourable job of keeping drivers informed, but they simply can't provide the same level of certainty for drivers that a government-regulated scheme could.
"No existing model provides perfect coverage of the ACT market, nor necessarily accurate prices," the Assembly committee noted in its final fuel prices inquiry report.
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Having a more rigid online price-tracking service overseen by government, as noted by the National Roads and Motorists' Association, would be a "much-needed wake-up call" for the fuel industry and a win for drivers who would be able to make more informed choices on where to fill up.
Such a real-time monitoring scheme would be particularly handy at a time like the present, with fuel prices increasing on the back of a drone strike that shut down more than half of Saudi Arabian oil productions last week.
While fuel prices typically don't change much in Canberra, given the lack of a price cycle here, it is important drivers have access to reliable, up-to-the-minute information when there is significant movement.
This is especially important when you consider that for years, drivers in the capital have been forced to fork out more than those in other major Australia cities, and even those just across the border in NSW, to fill up.
Should the ACT government elect to do nothing and leave the fuel market to continue operating as is, it is all but guaranteed that before too long, we'll be having this debate about fuel prices again.
A seven-month inquiry into fuel prices in 2019 has led us to realise what the Independent Competition and Consumer Commission already told us in 2001.
Surely we don't need another 18 years and yet more taxpayer-funded inquiries before we make a government-regulated fuel price monitoring scheme a reality in the ACT.
