Page 5516 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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the Liberal Party in the ACT apparently supports their arboretum. That is not true. Clearly, again, it shows how out of touch this Treasurer is if she genuinely believes what she said in this debate.
In conclusion on these amendments, we will not be supporting them. It is usual form from the Greens just to back the government and to back their line; that is what they have done. We are not surprised about that. The government are effectively saying they cannot do anything. We do not accept that. They can and they should. In fact, much of what they do has put additional, significant extra burdens on the people of the ACT. They need to be held accountable for that. We will continue to hold them accountable, whether we have supporters in this Assembly to back us or not.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.34): The argument from those opposite in relation to this motion today is either mind numbingly dumb or it is deliberately deceitful when it comes to the people of the ACT—mind numbingly dumb because it fails to recognise the context in which these price increases have been occurring and the comparativeness of those price increases compared to price increases for the same bundle of services in other jurisdictions. So it is either mind numbingly dumb or it is deliberately deceitful. And it is the use of statistics to advance an argument knowing deliberately that you will not tell the full story.
I think the Chief Minister and the Treasurer have belled the cat when it comes to this issue. What they have said very clearly is this: have regard to these price increases in the context of wages growth, in the context of employment growth, in the context of a whole range of other factors that should be brought to bear when we have this discussion—real wages growth in the territory of a significant order, at the same time that prices in a range of areas for bundles of services have increased. Have regard to those issues.
I want to turn specifically to some of the claims the opposition has made when it comes to electricity and water prices. It is interesting to note that once again we see this approach from the Liberal Party which is indeed either dumb or deceitful when it comes to the argument about water prices. We heard Mrs Dunne assert again today that water prices were the most expensive in the country—even more expensive than Perth, she said. And she tried to make the argument that the cost of those services in Perth was lower than it was here in Canberra.
She is wrong; she is absolutely wrong. The latest National Water Commission report confirms it. It confirms that the cost of those services in Perth is higher than it is here in the ACT. The National Water Commission in its most recent report on pricing confirms that the cost in Perth is higher than in the ACT, yet Mrs Dunne brazenly and deceitfully makes the claim—it can only be characterised as such—that the cost of water services in Perth is lower than in the ACT. She got it wrong.
Indeed, the percentage increase in water pricing in the ACT was the lowest percentage increase of any of the water utilities during the reporting period of the National Water Commission report for utilities in the large capital cities, at one per cent. That was the
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