Page 3623 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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She also drew attention to the loss to government revenue of $600,000 in a full year. She indicated to the Assembly that that revenue, if lost by the Government, would have to be found from some other source. I also note that she foreshadowed that the increase would appear in the 1994-95 budget papers. I did not support the similar disallowance motion by Mr Humphries in October 1993, and I do not propose to support the motion before the Assembly today.
I would now like to turn to the Government's response to the Public Accounts Committee's report on the review of petrol supply arrangements in the ACT. I will go through the recommendations at some length and offer my comments on them. To date, I have not participated in the debate on this very important matter, and I think that my views would be of interest to members of this Assembly. The first recommendation made by the Public Accounts Committee was:
The Government adopt higher standards of documentation and analysis of options when considering major changes to long established Government policy affecting the financial interests of local businesses and individuals (such as major changes to fuel and supply arrangements in the ACT).
I note that the Government does not disagree with this recommendation. I certainly concur with the Public Accounts Committee's request that standards of documentation in relation to these matters be improved in the future.
The second recommendation - there are a number of points which flow from it - was:
The Government reconsider its current policy favouring independents as the pre-eminent means to achieve sustained fuel reductions in the ACT, given the impact of the Government's policy upon local small businessmen and women and the various reasons advanced in this report for scepticism about the long term benefits of the Government's policy. In particular, the Government should consider one or more of the following options:
. setting the maximum base wholesale price of fuel, the maximum retail price of fuel, and the maximum retail margin in relation to fuel (utilising existing legislation).
In response to this recommendation of the committee, the Government has said that it has already been considered by the Government and goes on to give the Assembly a fairly lengthy explanation of why the Government has not acted under the Fair Trading (Fuel Prices) Act 1993 that it introduced into the Assembly. I do not have any difficulty with the Government not pursuing that particular course of action. I think that it has had plenty of time to consider the consequences and the ramifications of proceeding in that way. I note that, some 12 to 18 months after the introduction of that Act, the Government has not felt inclined to proceed with the implementation of that legislation.
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