Page 3037 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 September 1994
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SUSPENSION OF STANDING AND TEMPORARY ORDERS
Motion (by Mr De Domenico) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent order of the day No. 17, Assembly business, relating to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts Report No. 13 on the Inquiry into Petrol Supply Arrangements, being called on forthwith.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS - STANDING COMMITTEE
Report of Inquiry into Petrol Supply Arrangements
Debate resumed.
MR MOORE (4.25): Mr Deputy Speaker, there is an old cliche that goes something like: There is no gain without pain. It seems to me that the Minister, in taking on the fuel crisis in this town, was conscious that that would be the case, and I think all members here would recognise that it would be the case. The Public Accounts Committee has recognised that there is no easy way for us to go about ensuring a reduction in fuel prices in the ACT so that they are on a fair and equitable basis with those in other parts of Australia and, in particular, in nearby Sydney.
The issue, Mr Deputy Speaker, that seemed to me most critical was that the pain in this case, under the system instituted by Mr Connolly, was to be shared by a very small part of our community - by a small number of businessmen - and that was the difficulty that we had to deal with. Mr Deputy Speaker, in the committee's report we identified a series of precedents where governments have decided to interfere in the marketplace to benefit consumers; but in each of those cases what we identified was that the government had provided some form of compensation for the market in which they were interfering, in order to get it back to an equitable basis.
The difficulty with the situation we have at the moment, where compensation is not paid, is that small business people throughout Canberra should all now begin to wonder whether they will be next. For example, it would be possible for this Minister to say, "Prices of taxis are too high. Therefore, what we will do is introduce another system within the taxi scheme or we will suddenly release a stack of taxi licences - perhaps 50 or 60 taxi licences that might all be released on special conditions - so that taxi fares will come down". That would occur. The difficulty is that all those people who have paid $100,000, give or take a few thousand, for their taxi licences would be severely disadvantaged. It is the same sort of situation as I perceived from the evidence presented to us in the Public Accounts Committee. That has been the result of this particular situation. That is something the Public Accounts Committee has called on this Minister to deal with. Our way of dealing with it is to say, "Look at compensation". I point out that we did not say $9m. We said, "Look at compensation where a direct link can be proven between the action taken by the Government and disadvantage to a small number of business people". That is where the Government ought to consider compensation.
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