Page 3762 - Week 12 - Thursday, 21 October 1993
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operates in both New South Wales and the ACT and somehow apportion the amount of diesel being used in New South Wales versus the amount being used in the ACT, particularly if those particular vehicles are being taken backwards and forwards across the border. It is wellnigh impossible.
I reaffirm that you will not see the New South Wales commissioner cancelling an exemption certificate for a New South Wales business. It will not happen. I guarantee that. Madam Speaker, I think that - - -
Mr Moore: He says in writing that he will. You guarantee it, and he says in writing that he will.
MR HUMPHRIES: No. He does not say either way, whether he is talking about ACT or New South Wales people. I am saying that as a matter of practical policy he is not going to get away with removing the right of New South Wales operators to do that because, let us face it, they do it at present. Lots of businesses based in New South Wales at present cross the border and, of course, they will continue to do so. But what they can do today legally, or with the full use of their permit, they will not be able to do next year after the passage of this Bill. That is an important distinction. I think we have lost sight of that fact. Madam Speaker, I welcome this amendment, but I feel that it could go much further.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.46): Madam Speaker, the Government reluctantly will be accepting Mr Moore's amendments. I will tell you, first of all, why I am reluctant about accepting them. I share Mr Humphries's view that there is no particular reason to exempt farmers. They are, in many ways, another form of business. I do not see why Mr Moore has any more of a brief for farmers, for instance, than he does for the construction industry. Mr Moore has said, of course, that farmers are competing on a national scale, and they are competing with other farmers who do enjoy a diesel concession; but the same could be said for other businesses as well. I do not believe that there is any reason for us to view farmers as amongst the most needy in our community either. In my view, they ought not to be exempted on hardship grounds.
I can understand, Madam Speaker, why farmers in other States might need this kind of exemption. Farmers in big States like New South Wales often have to travel many thousands of kilometres in the course of their farming. They have to cross thousands and thousands of kilometres of dirt roads and tracks in all sorts of conditions. That does not apply to the farmers of the Territory. They mostly go about their business on made roads and over short distances. There is no need also, as far as I am aware, in this Territory for farmers to make extensive use of diesel for generating their own power, and that is very much the case in many areas of outback Australia; farms have their own generators and they are run on diesel. It is an enormous cost to them. I do not think that applies here in the Territory.
Elsewhere in Australia also, farmers frequently suffer from long droughts. A couple of years of drought is not uncommon. Having to feed stock over thousands of hectares of property is a very fuel intensive activity and is another good reason why farmers in those circumstances might be exempted from diesel franchise fees. But that does not apply in the Territory. We have not had a drought for years that I can remember; even when we do, the distances involved are nothing like they are in the rest of Australia. So, Madam Speaker,
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