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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1894 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

The managing director of Capitol Chilled Foods ... said it was too soon to know what the price of milk would be, but he expected a "slight increase" from July 1.

In just four months we have gone from a prediction that prices would plummet to there being an inevitable slight increase. Those of us who have been concerned about this very thing happening for some years now, only to have been continually fobbed off by the government, have just four words to say: "We told you so." While it is of little comfort to know that you have been right all along, today's realities are not going to change. The government has done something to help our milkos adjust to their new world, but I do not believe they have done enough. Should this legislation pass, some milkos will be substantially out of pocket, and under such circumstances it does not have my support.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (10.25), in reply: Let me correct the historical record. Mr Hargreaves and Ms Tucker both said that deregulation of the milk industry in the ACT began with the review of Dr Sheen in 1998. It did not.

Mr Moore: It began with Rosemary Follett.

MR HUMPHRIES: With respect to my colleague, it began not just with Rosemary Follett and the former ACT Labor government but also with the Keating federal Labor government. It was in 1994 that all Australian governments, including the Labor government of the ACT and the federal Labor government of Mr Keating, agreed to the national competition policy. That policy commits the ACT to review every single piece of legislation in existence in the territory, to consider the policy implications of its present form and to agree to move towards changing the legislation if the competition issues were not adequately addressed as it stood. That is provided for in the agreement. To enforce that process, the Commonwealth built in a series of annual payments to-

Mr Hargreaves: There is no connection-

MR HUMPHRIES: There is a connection.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hargreaves, you raised the question of protection earlier.

MR HUMPHRIES: We have an agreement that was entered into by the former government to review legislation, including the Milk Authority Act, and a commitment underpinned by annual payments made to the ACT to meet a program of review of legislation to consider its competition impacts. That is true. If Mr Hargreaves has any doubts, he should read the document that was agreed between the ACT Labor government and its colleagues in other states and the Commonwealth.

Unpalatable as it may be, it leaves the ACT in the position of having to carry through obligations that were made some years ago and picked up in a tangible form by this government in 1998 with the Sheen review. Members have spoken about Dr Sheen's review of the Milk Authority Act and Public Health (Dairy) Regulations. We are aware of the result of that review. I might also point out that the changes that have now been effected in the ACT reflect very closely the changes that have taken place in other

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