Ms MARTIN - 1999-04-27
Territorians know we face close to the highest power prices in Australia. For months we’ve been looking forward to receiving a substantial cut in power charges in today’s budget. How much relief will the Country Liberal Party finally provide?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I will refer the question to the Minister for Essential Services. The honourable minister is in a far better position to explain in detail what is happening with electricity prices rather than the misleading information the Leader of the Opposition puts out on radio and in the media every day of the week.
Mr COULTER: Mr Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the opportunity to get out quite a lot of myths that have been circulated, particularly about us having the highest electricity charges in the world – that was, in fact, the statement she came up with.
I table for the benefit of honourable members a document showing Italy here and the Northern Territory about here. That’s a world comparison of power prices, and it is important to know.
The domestic electricity comparisons are interesting. We see privatisation in Melbourne. They were the first ones to get into privatisation, and even they do not have a contestable domestic power market as yet. They are considering it, and they’ve been into this business for a long time.
If you have a look, yes we are the highest at 14.12, followed closely by Melbourne at 13.94. But remember how long they have had their infrastructure in place that is being paid for. There is a marginal difference there. We’re talking a few percentage points in that regard.
With regards to the general purpose tariff comparisons with small business, you will see Melbourne is the highest at 16.24 followed by Perth at 16.08 and ourselves at 15.66. That gets rid of that myth as well, that we are the dearest in Australia, not only the world. I have some gazetted retail prices for domestic and commercial and you can see what has happened, and the real decreases that have occurred in that particular regard. There is the average real commercial prices by state which gives a comparison, and you can see that the Northern Territory has done reasonably well.
A member interjecting.
Mr COULTER: Okay, I can keep it coming.
With the domestic electricity prices for standard domestic tariff, and it gives the systems throughout Australia, you can see that we do very, very well there. We’re not the highest, we’re up amongst the highest, but there’s not very much difference between the top 5. Members opposite should get the chance to read it so as they know what they are talking about. You buy your books and all you do is sit down and chew the back cover off them. This is one we want you to read.
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The question asked how much prices were going to come down.
Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The minister has a fair amount of leeway in answering questions.
Mr COULTER: Mr Speaker, I’m trying to demonstrate that the myth, the lies, the propaganda that have been put out there about electricity prices in the Northern Territory are nowhere near accurate. To even say that they were misinformation would be giving them too much credit.
The opposition have an illogical domestic electricity charge position. They want to pass the $30m in power restructure savings to the domestic customers.
Ms Martin: Only $5m of that; only $5m to start with.
Mr COULTER: $5m is there. I’ll just write that down because I don’t think she said that before.
Remember that we have not had a level playing field here in the Northern Territory. Local government, in particular, has paid more than commercial operators. We have gone about making changes. The Treasurer has given me a target of $30m savings over 3 years, and to do that we have to do something. I mean, it just doesn’t happen. It’s not creative accounting. Positions have to go, and we’re looking at about 150 positions that need to go.
Mr Bailey: What about yours for starters?
Mr COULTER: What about what?
Mr Bailey: Yours for starters? Save a fortune!
Mr COULTER: I will take that on board. I’ve listened to your advice many, many times in the 15 years I’ve been here.
The ALP also wants no staff reduction, so they say: ‘We’re not going to have any staff reduction. No contracting out. No, you can’t privatise anything or do anything like that, and no form of privatisation at all’. That’s their position. They want $5m of the $30m to pass off. How are you going to get the $30m? You don’t touch anything, you don’t do anything. You don’t sack anybody. You borrow it or something. That’s their position.
They also want substantial increases in maintenance, and we have put substantial increases into maintenance. The Treasurer will be announcing this morning the increase in the maintenance budget, yet again, over a record level that was done last year. This means there are no savings to pass onto anybody. In fact, it means increased cost of power, and because somebody somewhere has to pay, higher domestic electricity charges. Their position is totally unacceptable. You have to consider privatisation, you have to consider contracting out, you have to consider staff reductions. All these things have to happen.
If it doesn’t happen, you can’t take anything off. We are starting to advantage those people who were most disadvantaged, and that was local government and the commercial sector, although they are not as badly off as what you would have people believe, and then we will have a look at the domestic situation after that. For there will come a time, if the LNG projects do go ahead in the Northern Territory, when we’ll be able to throw a set of jumper leads over into the LNG plant and live off their voltage drop, because they’re talking 500 MW of electricity. Our total capacity is only 200.
So, electricity prices will come down in the Northern Territory. Energy will be a very vital and important part of our economy, but it will not happen under a Labor government. It will be a Burke government that delivers that.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I will refer the question to the Minister for Essential Services. The honourable minister is in a far better position to explain in detail what is happening with electricity prices rather than the misleading information the Leader of the Opposition puts out on radio and in the media every day of the week.
Mr COULTER: Mr Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the opportunity to get out quite a lot of myths that have been circulated, particularly about us having the highest electricity charges in the world – that was, in fact, the statement she came up with.
I table for the benefit of honourable members a document showing Italy here and the Northern Territory about here. That’s a world comparison of power prices, and it is important to know.
The domestic electricity comparisons are interesting. We see privatisation in Melbourne. They were the first ones to get into privatisation, and even they do not have a contestable domestic power market as yet. They are considering it, and they’ve been into this business for a long time.
If you have a look, yes we are the highest at 14.12, followed closely by Melbourne at 13.94. But remember how long they have had their infrastructure in place that is being paid for. There is a marginal difference there. We’re talking a few percentage points in that regard.
With regards to the general purpose tariff comparisons with small business, you will see Melbourne is the highest at 16.24 followed by Perth at 16.08 and ourselves at 15.66. That gets rid of that myth as well, that we are the dearest in Australia, not only the world. I have some gazetted retail prices for domestic and commercial and you can see what has happened, and the real decreases that have occurred in that particular regard. There is the average real commercial prices by state which gives a comparison, and you can see that the Northern Territory has done reasonably well.
A member interjecting.
Mr COULTER: Okay, I can keep it coming.
With the domestic electricity prices for standard domestic tariff, and it gives the systems throughout Australia, you can see that we do very, very well there. We’re not the highest, we’re up amongst the highest, but there’s not very much difference between the top 5. Members opposite should get the chance to read it so as they know what they are talking about. You buy your books and all you do is sit down and chew the back cover off them. This is one we want you to read.
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The question asked how much prices were going to come down.
Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The minister has a fair amount of leeway in answering questions.
Mr COULTER: Mr Speaker, I’m trying to demonstrate that the myth, the lies, the propaganda that have been put out there about electricity prices in the Northern Territory are nowhere near accurate. To even say that they were misinformation would be giving them too much credit.
The opposition have an illogical domestic electricity charge position. They want to pass the $30m in power restructure savings to the domestic customers.
Ms Martin: Only $5m of that; only $5m to start with.
Mr COULTER: $5m is there. I’ll just write that down because I don’t think she said that before.
Remember that we have not had a level playing field here in the Northern Territory. Local government, in particular, has paid more than commercial operators. We have gone about making changes. The Treasurer has given me a target of $30m savings over 3 years, and to do that we have to do something. I mean, it just doesn’t happen. It’s not creative accounting. Positions have to go, and we’re looking at about 150 positions that need to go.
Mr Bailey: What about yours for starters?
Mr COULTER: What about what?
Mr Bailey: Yours for starters? Save a fortune!
Mr COULTER: I will take that on board. I’ve listened to your advice many, many times in the 15 years I’ve been here.
The ALP also wants no staff reduction, so they say: ‘We’re not going to have any staff reduction. No contracting out. No, you can’t privatise anything or do anything like that, and no form of privatisation at all’. That’s their position. They want $5m of the $30m to pass off. How are you going to get the $30m? You don’t touch anything, you don’t do anything. You don’t sack anybody. You borrow it or something. That’s their position.
They also want substantial increases in maintenance, and we have put substantial increases into maintenance. The Treasurer will be announcing this morning the increase in the maintenance budget, yet again, over a record level that was done last year. This means there are no savings to pass onto anybody. In fact, it means increased cost of power, and because somebody somewhere has to pay, higher domestic electricity charges. Their position is totally unacceptable. You have to consider privatisation, you have to consider contracting out, you have to consider staff reductions. All these things have to happen.
If it doesn’t happen, you can’t take anything off. We are starting to advantage those people who were most disadvantaged, and that was local government and the commercial sector, although they are not as badly off as what you would have people believe, and then we will have a look at the domestic situation after that. For there will come a time, if the LNG projects do go ahead in the Northern Territory, when we’ll be able to throw a set of jumper leads over into the LNG plant and live off their voltage drop, because they’re talking 500 MW of electricity. Our total capacity is only 200.
So, electricity prices will come down in the Northern Territory. Energy will be a very vital and important part of our economy, but it will not happen under a Labor government. It will be a Burke government that delivers that.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016