Page 4183 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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MRS GRASSBY (4.04): I rise to speak in this debate and to support the Minister, Mr Connolly. The NRMA matter came up when I was the Minister for Housing and Urban Services. At that stage we were in the process of negotiating with the NRMA. Mr Collaery says that the money in question belongs to the people in Canberra. That is not quite correct. The money was collected by the NRMA and it was the NRMA's money. As Mr Connolly said, they have done something which it is very rare for a company to do. In the world we live in today, we all know about the Bonds and the other people who many people have lost money with.
The NRMA have said, rightly, that this money is an overcharge and that it has accrued for many good reasons. For instance, there have been fewer motor vehicle accidents in Canberra. I was looking at some very interesting figures today. The ACT has the second largest number of people under 20 in Australia, with 33.2 per cent. The Northern Territory has 36.98 per cent. The accumulation of insurance premiums in the ACT reflects not only the fact that people here have good roads but also the obviously very good program to teach road safety to young people in our schools.
We all know that because of road accident statistics insurance companies do not like to insure the cars of people under 25; thus the premiums for people in this age group are quite enormous. Because of many good things that have happened in Canberra and despite the large number of young people here, we have been able to keep accident rates and insurance claims down. I congratulate, in part, the NRMA. Part of their program is to educate road users and to teach people to be better drivers. The ACT Government has also done a very good job. As a Minister I started a program - and it has been carried on through our schools - to teach people, before they get their drivers licences, to take care on the road.
How this money will be shared has been negotiated by Mr Connolly with the NRMA. I congratulate him on the result. In the climate that we live in today, profits are never handed back to the people. Someone makes sure that they stay with the wealthy. I have been in the retail industry, and we all know that in the retail industry your profit margin is marked up to account for shoplifting. You know that there is going to be a certain amount of shoplifting a year in the business, so you account for it.
Suppose it were to happen that David Jones, Grace Bros or any other large store all of a sudden found that, for some very good reason - goodness knows what - the amount of shoplifting in their store had gone down. I ask whether they would go round to all of us who buy there and say, "Look, shoplifting has gone down and we have made this much profit. You have bought with us, so we are going to give back to you all this extra money that we made because
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