Page 2040 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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It surprises me that no-one has mentioned one very important aspect of the fact that some people will be adversely affected by paying more, whether it be for water, electricity or anything else. I recall that Mr Lamont intends to amend the essential services legislation to cover those people who find it difficult to pay excess water and/or sewerage rates under the new regime. That is something that has not been mentioned, and it is a pity that it has not been mentioned.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! It being 45 minutes after the commencement of Assembly business, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 77 as amended by temporary order, and the resumption of the debate has to be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Motion (by Mr Berry) agreed to:
That the time allotted to Assembly business be extended by 30 minutes.
MR DE DOMENICO: As I was saying, very little, if any, mention was made of the Government's intention to amend the essential services legislation to include water and sewerage rates. The Liberal Party has gone public, saying that we would support such amendments. We still have not seen anything before us, but we would find it very difficult not to support amendments that did that. Like Mr Moore and Ms Szuty, I am concerned that this system presently before us will tend to penalise bigger families and make it very difficult for them. I am also aware that a lot of pensioners and retirees with larger blocks and non-native gardens have said that they believe that they will be adversely affected by this sort of a system.
Madam Speaker, I still have not committed the Liberal Party one way or the other. I am very interested to listen to what Mr Moore has to say in response. I have brought up a couple of queries that I would like answered by Mr Moore and others. But the last thing I would like to say is that I believe that any change from where the system was last year is a good thing. I concede that the changes before us seem to offer a conservation incentive to 60 to 70 per cent of people, but for 30 per cent or so of users there is no real incentive to conserve water. But, once again, I think we have to make improvements in greater steps. As I said, the Liberal Party is still not convinced either way, and I will be very interested to hear what Mr Moore has to say.
MR MOORE (11.31), in reply: In rising to reply in this debate, I think it is important to note that Mr Lamont responded to only one of all the issues that I raised, and then only in part. He said that the Government would deal with public tenants who were in stand-alone housing - who, as I recall, make up less than 50 per cent of our public tenants. That is the only thing that he provided a reasonable response to at all.
Let me run through some of the issues that were raised. There was the issue of conservation. We raised the issue, and Mr De Domenico reiterated it, of when we will need a new dam. We know from recent demographic projections that another 50 years will pass before we reach a population of 500,000. Our water supply system is already designed to take us through to approximately that time, taking into account - as I argued before - the measures that we have already put into place. So Mr Lamont saying that people are going to have to pay $200 more a year for the new dam is not an issue.
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