Mr CONLAN - 2015-08-25
Can you outline what the Country Liberals government is doing to reduce cost of living pressures?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Greatorex for his question, which goes to the heart of cost of living and our interventions to support reducing those pressures. We hear a lot about the price of petrol in Darwin. Today it is 134.9c, which is, roughly speaking, about 17c per litre less than what it is in Brisbane. That is the lowest in the country. We do not hear people talking about the cost of fuel in other parts of the Northern Territory. I know in Alice Springs it is about $1.38 at the Shell service station on Larapinta Drive. Maybe the member for Katherine and others could tell us about other parts of the country.
In regard to cost of living we have taken an approach on five key areas – petrol or fuel, airfares, groceries, electricity and housing. What we are seeing in regard to fuel is obvious. We ran a fuel summit plus a range of other things, and we came up with a bill for fuel price disclosure. We are now in a position, after being heavily criticised for the things we have done, where we have the lowest fuel price in the nation.
Those critics follow the example that indicates success has many champions and everyone seems to own the success, but failure is an orphan. We have been successful to date.
In regard to housing, I think the proof is in the reduction in housing and unit prices across the Northern Territory, with the biggest land release strategy we have seen. There will be 6500 new dwellings over the next 10 years. Katherine East, Muirhead, Kilgariff, and Zuccoli stages three and four, with 1700 new homes, new schools and commercial centres, social housing and parks. All of this is driving down the cost of housing in the Northern Territory.
We have been particularly focused on airfares, which is not regularly spoken about, and our ability to bring new airlines to the Northern Territory, most notably Virgin between Darwin, Alice and Adelaide but also the complementary services. The competition from Qantas, Airnorth and others has seen a slight reduction in airfare prices and we believe that will continue to apply downward pressure.
We have done a high degree of analysis on the price of groceries in the Territory. Without pointing to specific reports in regard to groceries, we estimate about 80% of groceries are on par with unit prices across Australia, with the two major chains being Coles and Woolworths. There is around 5% less in grocery prices and about 15% where we are up to approximately a 2% margin. We are competing fairly well with grocery prices given the logistical challenges of the Territory.
With regard to electricity, our structural separation is continuing to provide massive downward pressure on commercial tariffs. By the end of the year you will see commercial competition in the retail sector which will continue to provide downward pressure.
Madam SPEAKER: Chief Minister, your time has expired.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Greatorex for his question, which goes to the heart of cost of living and our interventions to support reducing those pressures. We hear a lot about the price of petrol in Darwin. Today it is 134.9c, which is, roughly speaking, about 17c per litre less than what it is in Brisbane. That is the lowest in the country. We do not hear people talking about the cost of fuel in other parts of the Northern Territory. I know in Alice Springs it is about $1.38 at the Shell service station on Larapinta Drive. Maybe the member for Katherine and others could tell us about other parts of the country.
In regard to cost of living we have taken an approach on five key areas – petrol or fuel, airfares, groceries, electricity and housing. What we are seeing in regard to fuel is obvious. We ran a fuel summit plus a range of other things, and we came up with a bill for fuel price disclosure. We are now in a position, after being heavily criticised for the things we have done, where we have the lowest fuel price in the nation.
Those critics follow the example that indicates success has many champions and everyone seems to own the success, but failure is an orphan. We have been successful to date.
In regard to housing, I think the proof is in the reduction in housing and unit prices across the Northern Territory, with the biggest land release strategy we have seen. There will be 6500 new dwellings over the next 10 years. Katherine East, Muirhead, Kilgariff, and Zuccoli stages three and four, with 1700 new homes, new schools and commercial centres, social housing and parks. All of this is driving down the cost of housing in the Northern Territory.
We have been particularly focused on airfares, which is not regularly spoken about, and our ability to bring new airlines to the Northern Territory, most notably Virgin between Darwin, Alice and Adelaide but also the complementary services. The competition from Qantas, Airnorth and others has seen a slight reduction in airfare prices and we believe that will continue to apply downward pressure.
We have done a high degree of analysis on the price of groceries in the Territory. Without pointing to specific reports in regard to groceries, we estimate about 80% of groceries are on par with unit prices across Australia, with the two major chains being Coles and Woolworths. There is around 5% less in grocery prices and about 15% where we are up to approximately a 2% margin. We are competing fairly well with grocery prices given the logistical challenges of the Territory.
With regard to electricity, our structural separation is continuing to provide massive downward pressure on commercial tariffs. By the end of the year you will see commercial competition in the retail sector which will continue to provide downward pressure.
Madam SPEAKER: Chief Minister, your time has expired.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016