Page 5536 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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Mr Corbell: Can you repeat the last part of your question?
MR COE: Minister, how will you be communicating to Canberrans that there will be a $4 per week increase in the cost of electricity, which will equate to 15 per cent for most households?
MR CORBELL: Four dollars a week does not equate to 15 per cent per household; it only equates to, if I recall correctly, around two per cent of the total electricity bill per household. But in relation to—
Mr Seselja: $200 a year isn’t two per cent.
MR CORBELL: No, this is where they fail to understand. I was referring to those elements the government has agreed to deploy, which is 40 megawatts of the 210 large—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR CORBELL: Listen carefully. Forty megawatts of the large 210 megawatt generator category is what the government has agreed to deploy. That will result in a cost to households of no more than $2 per week once deployed. The existing 30 megawatt scheme, which has been allocated between micro and medium generators, will also only add an additional $2 per household per week once fully deployed. Total cost to households once those elements are deployed—$4 per week per household, which is only around two per cent of the total ACT average electricity bill.
In relation to how this will be communicated, the pass-through of these costs must be approved by the regulator, and that is a public process that engages the public in the pass-through of those costs.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary, Mr Seselja?
MR SESELJA: Thank you. Could the minister please explain to the Assembly and clarify how an approximately $200 to $225 a year increase in electricity bills amounts to two per cent of current energy prices?
MR CORBELL: I was not referring to the $225 figure. Again, the opposition fail to understand how this scheme is being deployed. They just seem to be completely clueless on this issue. Let me spell it out again: the government has agreed to deploy two elements. The first is 30 megawatts—
Mr Seselja: You are just wrong. You shouldn’t speak off the cuff, Simon.
MR CORBELL: Just listen, you dimwit. You might actually get the answer. There are two elements that are being deployed.
Members interjecting—
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