Dr. Honey questions the Minister for Energy regarding electricity outages and accuses the government of covering up failures. The Minister deflects, criticizes the opposition's approach to questions, and defends the government's energy policies while attacking the previous Liberal government's record.

AnsweredQoN 747Legislative Assembly
Asked
22 November 2022
Portfolio
Energy

QuestionView source ↗

ELECTRICITY — OUTAGES
747. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Energy:
I have a supplementary question.
Mr D.J. Kelly : Where do you
go now?
Dr D.J. HONEY : Not to you.
Is this not just a desperate
attempt on the minister's part to cover up his failures to provide
sufficient electricity to households this Christmas?

AnswerView source ↗

The
problem with these prewritten questions is that opposition members do not
listen to the answer. I remind members of
what we used to do when we submitted our questions to the tactics group; we would
write ''supplementary depending on answer''. We would listen to the answer and then ask the
supplementary question. We would not pre-prepare a supplementary regardless of
the answer.
This is the end frame from the TV
ads that used to be run when the Liberal Party was in government.
Dr D.J. Honey interjected.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON : Power
prices have almost flatlined. They have gone down over the last three years
compared with a 97 per cent increase when the Liberal Party was in
government. It has flatlined under us; there was a 97 per cent increase under
the former government. Those states that followed the ridiculous idea of
privatisation are having a 57 per cent increase in their electricity costs this
year and next year. If members want to know how not to run an electricity
system, talk to the Liberal Party. If members want to know how to have a disaster,
talk to the Liberal Party. Remember Hon Dr Mike Nahan said in this chamber that
the former government was planning to import
coal from Indonesia. That was in the energy market review written by Peter
Kerr. Do not forget those things . Also, do not forget that there was
this massive piece of legislation, which fortunately never passed the
Parliament and which would have got rid of our capacity market here in Western Australia
and given the east coast control over our electricity system. Thank God for the
inability of the upper house, under Hon Peter Collier's leadership, to pass any legislation because we would have had
to unwind what would have been a disaster for Western Australian energy
consumers.
The SPEAKER : That concludes
question time.

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