Page 5511 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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pay their electricity bills, families that have little or no discretionary income, families that can never enter the housing market, households that are on the never-ending cycle of trying to provide the basics for their families while keeping their head above water. It is because the Greens do care about those families that I reintroduced my motion on the notice paper yesterday. That specifically addresses the impact of rising electricity costs on people who are socially or financially disadvantaged, calls on the government to increase the electricity rebates for those families and ensures that their needs are considered early in any policies that may increase electricity prices.
This motion fails, as has already been articulated, to put these so-called increased costs against the backdrop of increased CPI, inflation and, frankly, increases in wages. Ms Hunter touched on these points. It is a classic damn lies and statistics motion. It completely takes out of context all the statistics that it refers to. It is a pretty silly idea to structure this motion around a statement of what some of the real costs are to particular sectors without looking at our overall standard of living and how wages have been rising over the past 10 years.
The truth is that the ABS tells us that Canberrans’ disposable income has increased 60 per cent since 2001. So the story Mr Seselja is trying to paint through this motion is misleading. We know that Canberra rates well in terms of our wellbeing and our liveability, some of those factors that are hard to put a dollar term on but are important to people’s lives.
However, we must not forget that there are people out there who are doing it tough. We know that, from around 2003, we have seen a growing disparity in income distribution in the ACT. These are the people who are getting left behind and the people who are most impacted by rising household costs, as they have the least disposable income, the least flexibility to change their purchasing patterns and the least life opportunities available to them. They are the people who cannot enter the housing market because there is not enough affordable housing available.
When it comes to climate and energy, I am really pleased that today the Leader of the Opposition acknowledged that the reason electricity prices have gone up is primarily the lack of investment in the electricity network and other reasons. It saves me having to go over these points again, because it has been frustrating, in recent times, the way that that argument has been distorted.
But it is obvious to everyone who has some understanding of what is going on in the world around us that the transition to clean energy will come with some costs. I am not going to pretend that this is not the case. Indeed, it would be foolish to do so. Nor am I going to pretend that I do not think it is worth it. I absolutely think it is worth it.
It is hard to believe that we have to remind the Canberra Liberals that we have, globally as well as in Australia, the biggest economic challenge that we will possibly see for a century or so, as we adjust our energy systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That economic challenge is larger in Australia, a country that has been gifted with massive reserves of brown and black coal on which we relied to deliver exceedingly cheap electricity for a long time.
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