Page 432 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 1993
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My question is: How did this come about? Were directions given to the publishers of the telephone directory to publish only the names of the members I read out and to omit the names of most of the members in this Assembly? We now have the situation that on weekends and after 5 o'clock on most weekdays no-one in Canberra can contact us. It is exceedingly difficult to get anywhere with the 013 number if you are trying to find numbers for individual members. They are simply not given.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you for the question, Mr Stevenson. I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but I will follow up those details for you and give you the answers.
Gas Meters - Reading Charges
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is addressed to the Minister for consumer affairs, Mr Connolly. I refer the Minister to the escalating price of gas meter reading in the ACT. It has been brought to my attention that the price for reading a gas meter in the Territory, which occurs six times a year, has risen from $5 to $9.18, and now to $10.49, in the space of just 14 months - which means that having a meter read in the ACT costs $63 a year, even for those consumers who have gas connected but choose not to use any.
Mr Kaine: Daylight robbery.
MR HUMPHRIES: And evening robbery as well, Mr Kaine. Can the Minister explain to the Assembly why the price of reading a gas meter has gone up by so much in such a short time, given that we have, to quote the former Federal Treasurer, the lowest inflation rate in the world, and why the ACT chooses to read the meters six times a year, compared with New South Wales and other States, which read only four times a year?
MR CONNOLLY: I will certainly look more closely into that. Of course gas is supplied in the ACT - - -
Mr Kaine: Connolly has his hand in everybody's pocket.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Kaine!
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Kaine, gas is supplied in the ACT not by a publicly owned authority like ACTEW, which supplies electricity and water, but by the private sector, which you people are always extolling. What Mr Humphries - - -
Mr Kaine: You have your hand in everybody's pocket. Come on, fess up.
Mr Lamont: Madam Speaker, I rise to a point of order. The interjections by the Leader of the Opposition are not only absolutely outrageous but unparliamentary and should be withdrawn.
Mr De Domenico: Madam Speaker, yesterday Mr Lamont was referring to members of the Liberal Party having hands in other people's pockets, so I have suggested that Mr - - -
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