OPINION: Filled up with fuel lately? Chances are you paid up to 30 cents a litre more than the company importing the petrol paid – after tax. That margin is bigger than any other country in the developed world. If you live in Wellington or the South Island you pay the highest margin.

What are Wellingtonians paying for that makes their petrol so special? The delightful coffee at service stations? The fact that almost no one on staff has mechanical knowledge? The friendly attendant who cheerily asks you (because they have to) if you want a 'discounted' chocolate bar?

From the 'tell me something I don't know' department came the story last week that our Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), who commissioned a report at the behest of Energy Minister Judith Collins, reckoned that there may not be a 'workably competitive market' for petrol.

In many other countries, when multinationals get out of line, their executives are prosecuted, and heavy fines are handed out. Google was recently fined €2.4 billion by the EU for making their search engine favour Google's own shopping service.

So what happens in New Zealand when oil companies are found to be overcharging? Our Energy Minister Judith Collins says the Commerce Commission might take a look – in November once the information has been assessed! 'We cannot definitely say that fuel prices in New Zealand are reasonable, but we have reason to believe that they might not be,' reasoned the eminently reasonable Crusher Collins. Why not threaten to crush a few oil tankers like you did with the boy racers?

I'm sure those oil barons deep in the heart of tax avoidance are quaking in their cowboy boots at the prospect of a couple of Commerce Commission bureaucrats taking a quick look at petrol pricing before zapping off on their Christmas holidays.

Andrew Little wants Collins to make the Commerce Commission act immediately. 'If she wants to show leadership she should be doing it now,' boomed the Labour leader. Little's tame comments were the petroleum equivalent of offering to raise the minimum wage by 75 cents.

If Mr Little wanted to actually win the election he might take a leaf out of Jeremy Corbyn's book, who would probably advocate fining the oil companies google-style and threaten to nationalise them if they didn't buck up their ideas.

That would greatly antagonise the business community and the media, but thousands of Kiwi motorists would say 'onya Andy' as they filled up.

And if nationalising naughty corporates is too Chavez-like, what about giving these companies a bit of Kiwi competition? In New Zealand, when big oil companies face competition from smaller companies like Gull, their petrol price decreases. Funny that. However, Gull can't afford the infrastructure to set up in Wellington and the South Island and the big companies won't sell them petrol wholesale.

When Jim Anderton advocated a New Zealand state bank, the business community and the National Opposition went ballistic. Yet Kiwibank has been a success, not only in its own right but with its effect on other banks. In Anderton's words, it 'keeps the bastards honest,' and there's no bastard like a multinational oil company. Just ask an Alaskan bird or the widow of a Nigerian trade unionist.

A modest state petrol company – let's call it KP (Kiwi Petrol) – could offer petrol at a realistic nationwide price. Its trained staff could offer superior service and even if it cost a bit to set up, it would help us all by keeping the prices of the big companies competitive.

With some fair competition – something most multinationals hate – we might have a truly free petrol market and not the anti-competitive, cartel-like, crude Third World oil situation we seem to be lumped with at present.