Ms MARTIN - 1999-08-10
The voters in Blain and Wanguri have sent a clear message. Barry Coulter has sent a crisis call. When will the Chief Minister cut the cost of power, act to cut the cost of living and provide better resources for health?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker,‘when will the Chief Minister act to cut the cost of living?’ – that’s a good throwaway line. One might ask what the opposition would do, what policies the opposition would employ, to cut the cost of living.
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister has the floor. I ask members on both sides to refrain from so much interjection. It’s just over the top.
Mr BURKE: These are the sort of throwaway statements that the Leader of the Opposition is particularly good at. I can tell you what we’re doing about power. We’re introducing competition into the electricity grid in the Northern Territory. We’re doing it in a similar way to other states. We’re going to appoint a regulator and we’re going to have strict criteria. We will act in a way that not only introduces competition into the grid but also protects the assets of Territorians.
When you talk holus-bolus as one of your candidates did at the last election, saying, ‘We want cheaper power in Palmerston’, understand what you’re saying. The Northern Territory government has a gas-fired power station at Channel Island. That station is fired by gas from beyond Alice Springs, from the Mereenie/Palm Valley gas field, piped to Darwin through a pipeline about 1800 km long. Those things didn’t just appear overnight. They came from serious and hard negotiations by the Northern Territory government with the producers to come up with a scheme whereby we could get gas-fired power in the Northern Territory. We assisted in the payment of the infrastructure costs of developing that field and constructing that pipeline. Those contracts involve take-or-pay contracts by the Northern Territory government with some years still to run.
Now, we’re happy for competition to come to the Northern Territory. In fact, we encourage it. We encourage competition in order to ensure that our power utility restructures in a competitive environment. We’re absolutely happy with competition. But what we won’t have in the Northern Territory is some arrangement whereby there is a particular advantage given to one company. That is essentially what is happening at the moment, and that’s why there is litigation occurring. One company disputes the rules and regulations that we are imposing on them. Our argument is absolutely sound. We don’t care how much the litigation costs. We will accept it because we are on clear moral ground. We will ensure not only that that particular operator comes into a competitive and regulated environment, but also that the environment is there for others.
The great joke in all this is that the Labor Party first of all says that it would take $30m out of a restructured PAWA and give that to consumers for cheap electricity. Anyone who knows basic economics would know that restructuring an inefficient utility does not produce $30m in your pocket. All it does is restructure an organisation so that it can compete in a competitive environment. So if you suggest to Territorians that through your policy - whatever it is, because I don’t know what it is - you will somehow produce $30m to put into cheaper tariffs for Territorians, I would simply ask you this question: Where is the $30m coming from?
It’s coming out of Treasury coffers? That’s fine. Lay out your economic policies. Tell me where you’re going to get the money from. Do something so that we can interrogate these fatuous arguments that you’re putting to Territorians. When you run around Palmerston and say domestic consumers in Palmerston should have a choice for power, tell them the truth. Tell them that competition has never been introduced to the domestic market anywhere in Australia so that the domestic consumer who lives at 2 Smith Street and someone who lives at 4 Smith Street can have different suppliers. This is pretty basic stuff. It’s called being honest to the consumer. The technology does not exist ...
Ms Martin: You haven’t understood it.
Mr BURKE: Open your ears and close your mouth for a second and you’ll get a lesson. The technology does not exist at this time to allow one person to say: ‘I want to stay with PAWA’, and their neighbour to say: ‘No, I want to go with the private supplier’. It does not exist. You can’t introduce an Everingham company into the Northern Territory, into the environment …
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order, member for Nhulunbuy!
Mr BURKE: You’re trying to con Territorians and you know it. That’s another lie, and that’s pretty typical of the way you operate. What you would have to do, and what the operator wants, is give the operator a whole section of the grid. Or you would have to give them all of Royal Darwin or all of Casuarina Shopping Square. That’s what he wants. He doesn’t only want part of the grid, he wants it in an unpopulated environment.
The question was, what are we going to do lower electricity prices? We are introducing competition in the market. We are doing it in a regulated way. We are releasing tranches of customers in the same regulated way as in every state in Australia. That’s the responsible way a responsible government should introduce competition into the market. Pray tell how you would do it?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker,‘when will the Chief Minister act to cut the cost of living?’ – that’s a good throwaway line. One might ask what the opposition would do, what policies the opposition would employ, to cut the cost of living.
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister has the floor. I ask members on both sides to refrain from so much interjection. It’s just over the top.
Mr BURKE: These are the sort of throwaway statements that the Leader of the Opposition is particularly good at. I can tell you what we’re doing about power. We’re introducing competition into the electricity grid in the Northern Territory. We’re doing it in a similar way to other states. We’re going to appoint a regulator and we’re going to have strict criteria. We will act in a way that not only introduces competition into the grid but also protects the assets of Territorians.
When you talk holus-bolus as one of your candidates did at the last election, saying, ‘We want cheaper power in Palmerston’, understand what you’re saying. The Northern Territory government has a gas-fired power station at Channel Island. That station is fired by gas from beyond Alice Springs, from the Mereenie/Palm Valley gas field, piped to Darwin through a pipeline about 1800 km long. Those things didn’t just appear overnight. They came from serious and hard negotiations by the Northern Territory government with the producers to come up with a scheme whereby we could get gas-fired power in the Northern Territory. We assisted in the payment of the infrastructure costs of developing that field and constructing that pipeline. Those contracts involve take-or-pay contracts by the Northern Territory government with some years still to run.
Now, we’re happy for competition to come to the Northern Territory. In fact, we encourage it. We encourage competition in order to ensure that our power utility restructures in a competitive environment. We’re absolutely happy with competition. But what we won’t have in the Northern Territory is some arrangement whereby there is a particular advantage given to one company. That is essentially what is happening at the moment, and that’s why there is litigation occurring. One company disputes the rules and regulations that we are imposing on them. Our argument is absolutely sound. We don’t care how much the litigation costs. We will accept it because we are on clear moral ground. We will ensure not only that that particular operator comes into a competitive and regulated environment, but also that the environment is there for others.
The great joke in all this is that the Labor Party first of all says that it would take $30m out of a restructured PAWA and give that to consumers for cheap electricity. Anyone who knows basic economics would know that restructuring an inefficient utility does not produce $30m in your pocket. All it does is restructure an organisation so that it can compete in a competitive environment. So if you suggest to Territorians that through your policy - whatever it is, because I don’t know what it is - you will somehow produce $30m to put into cheaper tariffs for Territorians, I would simply ask you this question: Where is the $30m coming from?
It’s coming out of Treasury coffers? That’s fine. Lay out your economic policies. Tell me where you’re going to get the money from. Do something so that we can interrogate these fatuous arguments that you’re putting to Territorians. When you run around Palmerston and say domestic consumers in Palmerston should have a choice for power, tell them the truth. Tell them that competition has never been introduced to the domestic market anywhere in Australia so that the domestic consumer who lives at 2 Smith Street and someone who lives at 4 Smith Street can have different suppliers. This is pretty basic stuff. It’s called being honest to the consumer. The technology does not exist ...
Ms Martin: You haven’t understood it.
Mr BURKE: Open your ears and close your mouth for a second and you’ll get a lesson. The technology does not exist at this time to allow one person to say: ‘I want to stay with PAWA’, and their neighbour to say: ‘No, I want to go with the private supplier’. It does not exist. You can’t introduce an Everingham company into the Northern Territory, into the environment …
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order, member for Nhulunbuy!
Mr BURKE: You’re trying to con Territorians and you know it. That’s another lie, and that’s pretty typical of the way you operate. What you would have to do, and what the operator wants, is give the operator a whole section of the grid. Or you would have to give them all of Royal Darwin or all of Casuarina Shopping Square. That’s what he wants. He doesn’t only want part of the grid, he wants it in an unpopulated environment.
The question was, what are we going to do lower electricity prices? We are introducing competition in the market. We are doing it in a regulated way. We are releasing tranches of customers in the same regulated way as in every state in Australia. That’s the responsible way a responsible government should introduce competition into the market. Pray tell how you would do it?
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016