Motorists hammered by rising fuel costs and interest rate hikes queue round the block at Vibe Nollamara

With no end in sight to cost-of-living pressures for WA families, round-the-block queues at a Nollamara service station on Tuesday have starkly illustrated the impact of rising fuel prices on top of another hike in mortgage rates. Hundreds of motorists were willing to spend up to an hour in 35C heat queueing for cheaper fuel on the same day the Reserve Bank of Australia hit borrowers with a 0.25 percentage point rise — the second for this year. Vibe in Nollamara was selling unleaded petrol for $199.5 per litre — compared with an average of $228.8 across Perth — the day before prices were set to soar by another 11c a litre. The maximum price will shoot up to an eyewatering $2.76 a litre on Wednesday, while diesel will jump to $272.8 per litre on average in the metro region. Canning Vale resident Paul Ralli said he had been in Nollamara visiting schools for his education technology job and decided it was worth the long wait to fill his tank at the Vibe outlet. “It’s about 20 cents a litre cheaper than anywhere else — which is significant,” he said. Mr Ralli said while the interest rate hike would not hurt him as much as some — with the mortgage on his home close to being paid off — he worried about how his children, now at university, would fare when they were ready to enter the housing market. “I’m actually quite lucky in that I have probably 80 per cent equity, “ he said. “But it never helps, it’s always better in your pocket than in the bank’s. It’s certainly one of the things you do need to be concerned about.” Maribel Abbulla told The West she had been sitting in the queue to fill her car’s tank for 40 minutes, and estimated she had another 30 minutes to go. “I have to, because I’m working every day, so I need fuel,” she said. “And what’s going on at the moment, with the oil, it could get worse.” She and her husband were on the cusp of buying a block of land and would push ahead, even if rates continued to rise. “We have the feeling that it (house prices) will not go lower,” she said. Rose used the hour she had been waiting in line to practise her cross-stitching. “I was planning on being in the area anyway, and I noticed that the fuel was really cheap here, and I figured it was worth it,” she said. “But I’m maybe going to run out before I get there.”