NRMA's Peter Khoury says Canberra petrol prices are still too high

And Chief Minister Andrew Barr has written to NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet asking him to waive the "more than $1 million cost" of Canberra joining the NSW FuelCheck scheme so that ACT motorists also get access to real-time prices across local service stations.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said while Canberrans were paying an average $187.9 cents per litre for regular unleaded this week, the wholesale price was $1.54 cents.

Mr Khoury said regular unleaded prices in Canberra had fallen nearly 30 cents a litre in the last four to five weeks but that still wasn't enough, as oil prices had been falling consistently since June.

"Canberra prices should be falling more than they are," he said.

The NRMA says it also expects the Albanese government to re-apply the full fuel excise to petrol prices at the end of next month, adding 22 cents back to fuel prices.

Mr Khoury said the NRMA understood the pressure of rising costs on families and believed petrol price relief was needed, but cutting the excise wasn't the best way to achieve that.

"We've always said the only way we're going to get meaningful and sustained relief is if those oil prices continue to fall," he said.

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In March, the former Morrison federal government halved the fuel excise for six months from 44.2 cents to 22.1 cents per litre. The cut is due to end just before midnight on September 28.

Mr Khoury said Mogas 95, the benchmark export price for Australian fuel, was this week at $108 a barrel. At its peak, Mogas was $164 a barrel.

He said the only thing that could consistently produce falling petrol prices was falling oil prices. Worldwide factors including Russia's war on Ukraine were affecting supply but there were indications supply was on the rise.

Mr Khoury said the NRMA wanted the revenue generated by the excise put into roads, especially those damaged in recent floods.

"The excise money needs to go back into roads," Mr Khoury said.

The cheapest regular unleaded fuel in Canberra this week was $1.68 a litre and the most expensive was $1.91 a litre.

But Canberrans couldn't, at a glance, find out which service stations were offering which price because the ACT would not pay to join the NSW FuelCheck scheme.

"It's a pretty basic reform: every service station has to post their price in real time and that information is then made available to the public. Currently, in NSW, that is through the NRMA app, and the government's FuelCheck website," Mr Khoury said.

"It's a pretty simple measure, making it easier for people to find the cheapest petrol in the area. It has not yet been applied in the ACT."

An ACT government spokesperson suggested the cost of joining the scheme - "assessed at over a million dollars" - was the sticking point.

"Over the past two years, ACT and NSW officials have been in discussions to extend the NSW FuelCheck scheme to include the ACT. However, these discussions stalled due to the prohibitive proposed joining cost originally put forward by NSW officials," the spokesperson said.

"After consideration of the very high proposed cost of extending the NSW FuelCheck scheme for the ACT, the Chief Minister has written to NSW Premier Perrottet to request a waiver of the establishment and licensing fees to extend the scheme to include the ACT.

"Adding the ACT to NSW FuelCheck could benefit both NSW and ACT residents. Forty thousand NSW residents travel into the ACT every day. The ACT is yet to receive a response from the NSW government."

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