❓ Opposition questions Premier about rising electricity prices, referencing a past promise of no increases and accusing the government of poor planning. Premier deflects, blaming the previous government's 'Soviet-style' monopoly and highlighting the current government's reforms.
AnsweredQoN 114Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
RESIDENTIAL ELECTRICITY TARIFFS 114. Mr T. BUSWELL to the Premier: On 28 June 2005, in relation to electricity prices, the Premier said to the Parliament — Now we are saying that prices will not go up. The objective, obviously, is to push them down. The expectation is not unrealistic. (1) Will the Premier commit himself to telling the people of Western Australia, as soon as the review of residential electricity tariffs is delivered to cabinet, exactly how much more they will be paying for electricity? (2) Will the Premier now accept that his failure to plan for the future, both as Minister for Energy and as Premier, has led directly to the chaos in the electricity industry? (3) Will the Premier now apologise to families across Western Australia for subjecting them, at a time of huge pressure on family budgets, to significant increases in their monthly power bills? Mr A.J. CARPENTER
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
RESIDENTIAL ELECTRICITY TARIFFS
On 28 June 2005, in relation to electricity prices, the Premier said to the Parliament — Now we are saying that prices will not go up. The objective, obviously, is to push them down. The expectation is not unrealistic. (1) Will the Premier commit himself to telling the people of Western Australia, as soon as the review of residential electricity tariffs is delivered to cabinet, exactly how much more they will be paying for electricity? (2) Will the Premier now accept that his failure to plan for the future, both as Minister for Energy and as Premier, has led directly to the chaos in the electricity industry? (3) Will the Premier now apologise to families across Western Australia for subjecting them, at a time of huge pressure on family budgets, to significant increases in their monthly power bills? Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
(2) Will the Premier now accept that his failure to plan for the future, both as Minister for Energy and as Premier, has led directly to the chaos in the electricity industry? (3) Will the Premier now apologise to families across Western Australia for subjecting them, at a time of huge pressure on family budgets, to significant increases in their monthly power bills? Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
(3) Will the Premier now apologise to families across Western Australia for subjecting them, at a time of huge pressure on family budgets, to significant increases in their monthly power bills? Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
(1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
RESIDENTIAL ELECTRICITY TARIFFS
On 28 June 2005, in relation to electricity prices, the Premier said to the Parliament — Now we are saying that prices will not go up. The objective, obviously, is to push them down. The expectation is not unrealistic. (1) Will the Premier commit himself to telling the people of Western Australia, as soon as the review of residential electricity tariffs is delivered to cabinet, exactly how much more they will be paying for electricity? (2) Will the Premier now accept that his failure to plan for the future, both as Minister for Energy and as Premier, has led directly to the chaos in the electricity industry? (3) Will the Premier now apologise to families across Western Australia for subjecting them, at a time of huge pressure on family budgets, to significant increases in their monthly power bills? Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
(2) Will the Premier now accept that his failure to plan for the future, both as Minister for Energy and as Premier, has led directly to the chaos in the electricity industry? (3) Will the Premier now apologise to families across Western Australia for subjecting them, at a time of huge pressure on family budgets, to significant increases in their monthly power bills? Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
(3) Will the Premier now apologise to families across Western Australia for subjecting them, at a time of huge pressure on family budgets, to significant increases in their monthly power bills? Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
(1)-(3) It is a very good issue. This is a genuine issue. Let me put it this way: did the Leader of the Opposition support our legislation? Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : How much is Verve losing a day? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Members opposite all supported it. Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : As I recall, and my recollection is pretty clear — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The Leader of the Opposition has asked a good question; he does not have to carry on like a schoolboy, interrupting me before I have said three or four words. Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : You asked me a question. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : He should grow up a bit. Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : Why don’t you sit down and let me answer it? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I will sit down if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to. Does he want me to sit down? Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Okay. This is the fact. We brought in legislation to disaggregate the great state monopoly, the clanking, clunking soviet-style monopoly utility called Western Power, which we inherited from the previous government. We inherited this old soviet-style clunking, clanking, chunking monopoly. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : It was one of the few state monopolies, if not the only remaining state monopoly, in the power generation system anywhere in Australia. Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr T. Buswell : I heard that you pre-select your candidates like Putin does. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Please. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s professional development program yesterday or the day before, which I think was a good idea, he should have had a bit of training on how to conduct himself in a more mature way. We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
We inherited this beast, which was costing us I do not know how many billions of dollars a year. I was the energy minister. I took over from the now Deputy Premier. No-one could tell us where the money was going. They would come to the budget process every year and say that they needed another $1 billion or $2 billion. Where was it going? They said, “We’ve got generation, retail, networks and distribution. It’s sort of going everywhere. We can’t really give you an indication.” We said that we wanted a bit of clarity. A huge amount of state funding was going into this organisation. Clarity has come—that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition can ask these sorts of questions—because of disaggregation, which he quite rightly supported. Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr J.H.D. Day interjected. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member supported it. There was a little window of opportunity when the Liberal Party moved out of its basic cynical, political, opportunistic, day-to-day mode when the member for Kalgoorlie became the leader. I think for about a year there was an opportunity for some sensible economic reform, which I would have thought the party that promotes itself as the party for business would lead, but it did not. It is a drag on the chain of reform. Members opposite are all caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. It is one of the strange twists in Australian politics that the Western Australian Liberal Party is the antireform party. It is a party that has the mentality of the 1950s. We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
We disaggregated. There was a condition on the support, which I agreed to as Minister for Energy on behalf of the government; that is, that the household domestic tariff should remain frozen until the end of 2008 or 2009. We agreed to that. I negotiated it with the then shadow minister and former deputy leader, who is now an Independent member. The agreement we had with the former leader and the former deputy leader was obviously bad for their political futures. The former deputy leader is now an Independent. It was in fact the continuation of a price freeze that has now been in place for about 12 years. Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr E.S. Ripper : 1997-98. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Since 1997-98 prices have been frozen, capped — Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : They weren’t capped. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Yes, they were. Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : No, they weren’t. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : No wonder everybody looks at the member for Cottesloe and says, “There goes a failed former minister.” He has absolutely no idea. The member for Cottesloe is the only person in the public debate who is running the argument that he runs, and he is supported by poor old Mark Drummond. Everybody in business shakes their head and says, “Thank God they’re not in power anymore; look at this nonsense.” We disaggregated. We created the generation, retailing, and network and distribution arms, and Horizon Power for everything outside the south west interconnected system, which was a good model. It has produced downward pressure on prices. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : If we were still using the old soviet-style monopoly, can members imagine what would happen with power pricing and the differential — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : Order, members! I call the members for Dawesville and Cottesloe to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : For a start, the negotiations for coal contracts halved the price of coal. It was a few years ago now, but off the top of my head the old contracts that were negotiated in the mid-1980s were $65 a tonne. Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : By Labor. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The member for Cottesloe did nothing to renegotiate those contracts. Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett : We did. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The former coalition government did nothing. The member for Cottesloe is the voice in the wilderness. He battles on about royalties, but he did nothing to change the price of coal contracts. He stood there and accepted what Western Power gave him day in, day out. He accepted it and then he regurgitated it and presented it as his own idea. The member for Cottesloe has never had an original idea. The new coal contracts came in at $30 a tonne compared with the old price of $65 a tonne. In the meantime, the price of gas, for example, in the rest of the world has tripled, quadrupled and quintupled. We do not live in a microcosm insulated from the rest of the world. Input costs into Western Australian energy production have risen substantially despite the fact that we negotiated a much lower coal contract price. The price of labour and materials have also gone up. Many forces have been putting upward pressure on prices. We never said that that would not happen. We did not anticipate—nobody did at that stage—that the price of gas would leap. One of the reasons that gas is so attractive as a fuel is that it is a substitute fuel for coal. Already the international market place is faced with many climate change issues. People are trying to access clean energy from Western Australia so the price of gas has gone up. Our major trade partners, particularly China, have experienced enormous economic growth and that has drawn gas and energy prices upwards. Of course, certain forces have produced upward pressure on prices. Had we not disaggregated Western Power, the forces that we would be faced with — Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. Barnett interjected. Withdrawal of Remark The SPEAKER : I call the member for Cottesloe to order. The comment he made is relatively inflammatory; therefore, I directly call on him to withdraw. Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr C.J. BARNETT : I withdraw the reference to “fool”. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr A.J. CARPENTER : The change in dynamics has shaped the whole energy industry. We cannot sit back and say that because the 1950s model was all right that we should return to that model. That is the stance of members opposite. We are now in the twenty-first century. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and this is what has happened. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
The SPEAKER : I call the members for Darling Range, Roe and Capel to order. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : Our capping of retail prices has resulted in a reduction in the income that the generators would have otherwise received; costs have gone up and their incomes have been capped. We are in a situation in which we do not have cost reflective pricing. Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr J.H.D. Day : You were just trying to tell us that coal prices have come down. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : They have, my friend. We do not have cost reflective pricing. However, we did guarantee—as part of the arrangement that we struck with the former deputy Liberal leader who is now an Independent—that domestic tariffs would not rise until after 2008 and into 2009. That is the case. However, at some point or other beyond that we will obviously have to move to cost reflective pricing otherwise we will be in an interminable situation in which we will be heavily subsidising power consumption. No-one in their right mind thinks that that it a good idea because, for a start, it would discourage renewable and cleaner energies because the cheapest would still be old coal. We have to move to cost reflective pricing. However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
However, the exact quantums the government is dealing with is not at its disposal yet. When we do have that information—this is the question the member asked—I will immediately inform the Parliament.
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