Page 2806 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 September 1994
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The fact of the matter is that New South Wales and other States do not want to give up their monopoly rents. They are not really, at heart, terribly interested in the national grid. They know that they are going to lose money, and so they should. They have had the advantage of those monopolies for many years and are reluctant to give them up. I call upon the Liberals opposite to take that issue up with their Liberal colleagues in the States and tell them that they think this Territory is being unfairly treated.
As for my own part, I have made our position very clear to the Prime Minister. I have put to him the view that I believe the Territory is entitled to compensation. I will be pursuing that matter. When I do I will be pursuing it in the best interests of this Territory, not in order to score the sorts of empty political points that we have heard from the Liberal speakers opposite. They know what the problems are. Mr Kaine himself was as involved in them as I am. He knows that it is not simply a matter of telling people what the Territory wants and having them do it.
Mr Acting Speaker, I can assure members that I will continue to do my utmost to make sure that this Territory is not disadvantaged by the reform of the national electricity industry. It is a reform which I do support and which is, at the end of the day, in the best interests of all consumers. In the Liberal States, that is where the problems are; that is where the reform process is being stymied, and that is certainly a large part of what the disadvantage problem is for this Territory.
MR DE DOMENICO (4.00): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise to involve myself briefly in this debate as well because, like Mr Kaine and Ms Follett, I was also very heavily involved in this debate prior to being elected.
Ms Follett: You were lobbying on the other side, lobbying for the Victorian Government. You hypocrite!
MR DE DOMENICO: No, I will tell you what I was doing. Listen.
Ms Follett: You were. Keeping us out is what you were doing.
MR DE DOMENICO: No, no. I am glad that the Chief Minister interjects. If the Chief Minister recalls, the then Premier of Victoria, Mrs Joan Kirner, also was in the throes of ignoring the bleats of Ms Follett - as long ago as Mrs Kirner, if people can remember her.
There is no doubt that people on both sides of this house expect the best possible deal for the people of the ACT. There is no denying that. We can stand here all day, across the floor of this house, blaming one another and one another's political colleagues or non-political colleagues; but what needs to be said, and what needs to be said very clearly, is that if the Government needs the help of the Opposition - from time to time we know that the Opposition is more effective than the Government - the Opposition is quite delighted to talk to whomever the Chief Minister would like us to talk to, to see whether we can help her get the Prime Minister of this country to hear her pleadings. We would be absolutely delighted to help the Chief Minister, if that is what she wants.
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