Page 3761 - Week 12 - Thursday, 21 October 1993
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The other point that I think is significant, Madam Speaker, is that the Federal Government gives a significant rebate, in fact a 20c rebate, on diesel oil and there is no rebate from the Federal Government on home heating oil. So there is already a significant advantage to those people who are using diesel oil over those who are using home heating oil. It was that factor that swayed Ms Szuty and me in terms of the arguments put by the Liberals on the diesel home heating franchise that we are dealing with. Madam Speaker, I recommend the amendments that I have moved.
MS SZUTY (4.42): I would like to add briefly to the comments made by Mr Moore. I would like to return to the Chief Minister's presentation speech on this Bill. In it she said:
The Territory has operated a diesel fuel exemption scheme for off-road users of diesel fuel since 1987 in line with exemptions provided in the States. These schemes are intended to provide relief to primary producers in the forestry, pastoral, agriculture and fishing industries.
By the passage of these amendments today we will restore those exemption certificates to our primary producers in the ACT. I wanted to point that out.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.43): Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party will be supporting these amendments that Mr Moore has moved. I must say that I am not entirely clear as to why we should be deciding to save primary producers from the axe that this Bill swings. I certainly do not oppose it, but I wonder why it is that they are more deserving than, say, users of home heating fuel. They do not create as many jobs, for example, as the construction industry creates in the ACT, so I do not know why we are not going down the path of exempting the construction industry as well. Nonetheless, it does mitigate to some extent the harshness of this Bill, and I am quite happy to indicate my party's support for it.
Mr Moore made a couple of comments that I want to respond to. He suggested that a person who took fuel from New South Wales across to the ACT and used it would be using that fuel illegally. I must admit that I have used that phrase as well. But, if you think about it, it is not actually true; it is not actually illegal because there is nothing in either the Act or the regulations that says that you may not do that. There is only a discretion which the Commissioner for ACT Revenue has and which he may exercise. If you do decide to use it in a certain way and he decides in his discretion to cancel your licence, it does not mean that you are using the product illegally. So illegality does not come into it.
Madam Speaker, Mr Moore made the point about 44-gallon drums; that you would need a lot of 44-gallon drums to get the fuel back over to the ACT. With respect, that was only an illustration of my being old fashioned about these things and of the fact that there are many ways in which you can circumvent these particular provisions. I am sure that that will be the method used by some people using home heating fuel; but other businesses will do it in a much more up-front way, the way they purchase diesel fuel at present. I assume that they have small tankers which they bring to the bowser and fill up and then take it away. Of course, other businesses will do it by not having to cross the border at all because those businesses will be in New South Wales already. I repeat the point that I made before. It is impossible to take a business which, for example,
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