Page 3484 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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I think it would be remiss of me not to mention the Liberal Party, who introduced this. It is like income tax in Australia. It is all very well saying that the Labor Party put it up recently, but what about who introduced it in the first place?
Mr De Domenico: But we promised to take it off.
MR STEVENSON: Yes, I know, and it has been done before. I understand that the Labor Party put it up, but you must accept some responsibility for introducing it in the first place.
Mr De Domenico: I will not. I was not there. It was Bernard Collaery.
MR STEVENSON: It was Bernard, was it? The question that I ask is this: Is it socially just that the members who have petrol cards do not even pay the increase?
MS SZUTY (11.51): Madam Speaker, I do not intend to address this motion for any lengthy time. I will not be supporting it. When I was researching this matter for the debate today I referred back to the Chief Minister's budget speech for this year where she stated:
From 1 November the fuel franchise fee, which has been frozen for the last three years, will be restored in real terms to the same level as in New South Wales, and it will be indexed in the future. The fee will rise by approximately 0.5c per litre and will raise $700,000 in 1993-94, or about $1m in a full year.
She went on to say:
The level of petrol prices in the ACT is a matter of considerable concern to the community and the Government, especially after the increases announced in the Federal budget, but there is no evidence that the freezing of the ACT franchise fee since 1990 has encouraged any containment of consumer prices.
I think that says it all. I have listened carefully to the speakers in the debate this morning and none of the arguments which have been presented to me have changed my mind on this matter. I will not be supporting this motion.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.52), in reply: To sum up, Madam Speaker, this Government really is grasping at straws when it opposes this measure. It knows that this motion of disallowance is based on its own standards. This Government, in rejecting this motion, is being hoist with its own petard. The Government knows that it cannot get away with this kind of broken logic. It knows that it is fully exposed to the people of Canberra as a government of hypocrites.
Madam Speaker, let us look at some of the arguments put forward. First of all, I think Mr Connolly or Ms Follett said, "There is an oversight in this matter. We are going to lose $26m if this motion is passed today. Oh, dear, we cannot do without this $26m". I have had a team of expert lawyers upstairs slaving over this issue since Ms Follett raised it an hour ago, working out some complicated solution to this problem that she has posed, and here is the dramatic solution that they have come up with, Madam Speaker - make a new determination.
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