Page 5522 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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resources in the surrounds. Yet we are paying over 100 per cent extra. Prices have more than doubled since ACT Labor came to office. So their arguments do not stack up.
Their argument on the one hand is: “Yes, it might be very high—70 per cent. Yes, sure that is high but it is not quite as bad as New South Wales.” Yet in other areas they are even worse than New South Wales. They are worse than every other state, every other jurisdiction. So you have got to go back to the fundamentals and say: “Have services doubled in that time? Has the quality of services doubled in that time?”
We hear all the time about how much money is put into health. And so much money is. Yet the services in health in terms of the indicators have gone backwards in that time. Our waiting lists have got longer. People are paying 75 per cent more in their rates. There are all these other cost of living pressures on them. They are being told by ACT Labor and by the ACT Greens that that is okay. “It is okay that you have to pay 70 per cent extra in electricity because in New South Wales they have to pay a bit more.” And it is okay that the government wants to add an additional burden to that, an additional burden in terms of electricity costs in what is a very inefficient way of reducing emissions. It is okay because the Labor Party and the Greens say it is okay.
We will stand up for families. We will stand up for those families in Conder, for example, who are slugged with a 70 per cent increase in electricity costs. As families are growing, the amount of electricity they use tends to grow. Despite some of the disparaging comments about the choice of plasma TVs and the like, most of these are decisions beyond their control.
If you go from being a couple to a couple having one child, two children or three children, inevitably your hot-water bill will increase. The amount of electricity you are forced to use will significantly increase. Anyone who has children can tell you the costs that are associated with that. Families know that. They make those decisions. They are not looking for handouts from governments. But what they are looking for is a fair go. They are looking for a government that is in their corner and that says, “We care about these cost of living pressures.”
Everything we have had from the Labor Party and the Greens shows that they do not care. They simply do not care about these pressures. They rationalise it away. They say: “In some cases we are not as bad as New South Wales. In other cases, of course, we are. Anyway, people’s income has grown.” People’s income has not kept pace with that. When you look at the rates per block in Calwell, which have gone up by 99 per cent, I do not think many people in Calwell over the last nine years have seen their income double. Maybe some have. Good luck to them. But I do not think that would be the common scenario.
The pensioners have not seen their income double. Police officers have not seen their income double. Nurses have not seen their income double. Teachers have not. Public servants have not. But they have seen their rates double. They have seen their water prices double. They have seen their electricity prices go up by nearly three-quarters—70 per cent, they have gone up.
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