Page 3486 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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My party has been consistent in saying that there are many areas of government you have to be looking at in terms of expenditure. I think, Madam Speaker, that this Government, if it were honest about it, would acknowledge the fact that we have had the guts to face those questions and it has not. A fact of life is that rises in petrol prices will translate themselves sooner or later into the loss of jobs in our community. People who earn a living through petrol prices in one form or another, people who transport goods around the Territory, people who do business in cars and trucks around this Territory, people whose business is dependent on those other people, will feel the effects of these sorts of increases. Ultimately every price increase of any significance is another lost job. In fact, there are more likely to be many lost jobs. The Government cannot avoid the reality that measures like this 0.5c a litre increase, measures like Follett's fuel franchise fee, are going to come at the expense of jobs in the Territory. It is utter hypocrisy.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Humphries, the extended time allotted to Assembly business has expired. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 77 as amended by temporary order.
Motion (by Mr Berry) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent consideration of Assembly business, notice No. 1, proceeding to a vote.
MR HUMPHRIES: We all know that these sorts of increases are going to translate themselves into lost jobs. We know that things like petrol prices have a very immediate and severe impact on the total cost of providing employment in the Territory, and it is sheer hypocrisy to suggest that this Government can be concerned about unemployment in this Territory when it does nothing to rein in the spiralling cost of petrol in the Territory.
Mr Connolly kept repeating, like a deranged parrot, that we have the same taxation arrangements with these measures as they have in New South Wales.
Mr Connolly: And we do.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed we do, but we also have much higher petrol prices. You cannot impose an increase of your own without taking into account that fact. When petrol is already 10c a litre higher in the ACT you cannot say, "We can put another 0.5c a litre on because we are still in line with New South Wales". Madam Speaker, the question that has to be asked is, "Who is responsible for that 10c a litre difference between ACT and New South Wales prices?". The Government's own report on petrol pricing in the ACT showed that question to be answered very clearly - the ACT Government. The ACT Government's planning policies have delivered higher petrol prices. You cannot avoid that reality. You can point the finger and you can say, "It is not our fault. Look at the oil companies. Look at the retailers"; but you, and the policies you have inherited, are the cause of those problems. You cannot, therefore, slap another price increase on the consuming public of Canberra and pretend that it is not your fault. Of course it is.
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