Ms MARTIN - 2001-03-01
Yesterday, when asked about the high retail margin on Darwin petrol prices, you responded with your usual drivel. Chief Minister, you carried on about fuel businesses’ ability to earn a quid. Well far more businesses consume fuel than sell it, and their ability to make a quid depends in no small measure on the fuel prices they face. Let’s not forget the poor householders in this - poor Territory householders struggling to make ends meet.
So Chief Minister, you have had 24 hours to think about this. What are you going to do and when are you going to fight for ordinary Territorians?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, what has happened in the last 24 hours is that I have received representations from service station operators who are incensed by the allegations that the profit margin is as high as 13.5 as Labor alleges, in a blanket statement, I might add, that suggests that all of them are making that kind of profit. My comments with regards to the high fuel prices in Australia and the Northern Territory are well and truly on the record in answers to Question Time and in other forums.
My position is absolutely clear. I do sympathise with all Territorians who pay high prices for fuel. But certainly an attack, as the Labor Opposition Leader is doing, on small business operators who are at the end of the food chain of profit, and to somehow suggest that they are profiteering and are therefore the cause of high petrol prices, is absolutely disgraceful. I will defend their right to exist in the business and to make a reasonable profit. I also have great faith in the discretion of consumers to pick their own venues in terms of where they see is a reasonable competitive price.
What we haven’t heard is the Labor Party put forward their position of what they would do, because if members are aware, and Territorians would be interested to know, when this whole business of fuel prices first became a topic Australia wide, it was the Labor Party that was going to conduct an inquiry into fuel prices. In fact, I even recall it was the Labor Party in the Northern Territory who was going to conduct an inquiry of fuel price on their own. Now, we have heard nothing as the result of that inquiry. What I would like to know from the Leader of the Opposition, I have fully explained my position, is what would the Labor Party in the Northern Territory do to lower petrol prices?
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The Chief Minister is asking me a question.
Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr BURKE: What I can say is that in terms of the 1.1 subsidy that is currently applied to petrol prices in the Northern Territory, that will remain. I am pleased to hear that the federal government and our Prime Minister has now indicated that there will be a reduction in Commonwealth excise of 1.5 a litre, and those are tangible and real efforts. All we ever get from the Labor Party and this opposition is to beat their chests and say you should do something, when their track record over many years has only ever been to rip off the taxpayer more and more. ‘Let’s find some easy way to get more taxes. Let’s put increased excise on fuel’. They did that over 10 or 11 years of government. They raised fuel excise by 300%. They tied the CPI and excise to that and now they have the gall to somehow suggest that they have the answers. Well, they don’t even have the answers. All they can do, as always, is criticise.
So Chief Minister, you have had 24 hours to think about this. What are you going to do and when are you going to fight for ordinary Territorians?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, what has happened in the last 24 hours is that I have received representations from service station operators who are incensed by the allegations that the profit margin is as high as 13.5 as Labor alleges, in a blanket statement, I might add, that suggests that all of them are making that kind of profit. My comments with regards to the high fuel prices in Australia and the Northern Territory are well and truly on the record in answers to Question Time and in other forums.
My position is absolutely clear. I do sympathise with all Territorians who pay high prices for fuel. But certainly an attack, as the Labor Opposition Leader is doing, on small business operators who are at the end of the food chain of profit, and to somehow suggest that they are profiteering and are therefore the cause of high petrol prices, is absolutely disgraceful. I will defend their right to exist in the business and to make a reasonable profit. I also have great faith in the discretion of consumers to pick their own venues in terms of where they see is a reasonable competitive price.
What we haven’t heard is the Labor Party put forward their position of what they would do, because if members are aware, and Territorians would be interested to know, when this whole business of fuel prices first became a topic Australia wide, it was the Labor Party that was going to conduct an inquiry into fuel prices. In fact, I even recall it was the Labor Party in the Northern Territory who was going to conduct an inquiry of fuel price on their own. Now, we have heard nothing as the result of that inquiry. What I would like to know from the Leader of the Opposition, I have fully explained my position, is what would the Labor Party in the Northern Territory do to lower petrol prices?
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The Chief Minister is asking me a question.
Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr BURKE: What I can say is that in terms of the 1.1 subsidy that is currently applied to petrol prices in the Northern Territory, that will remain. I am pleased to hear that the federal government and our Prime Minister has now indicated that there will be a reduction in Commonwealth excise of 1.5 a litre, and those are tangible and real efforts. All we ever get from the Labor Party and this opposition is to beat their chests and say you should do something, when their track record over many years has only ever been to rip off the taxpayer more and more. ‘Let’s find some easy way to get more taxes. Let’s put increased excise on fuel’. They did that over 10 or 11 years of government. They raised fuel excise by 300%. They tied the CPI and excise to that and now they have the gall to somehow suggest that they have the answers. Well, they don’t even have the answers. All they can do, as always, is criticise.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016