Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is not true. We have many horticultural businesses and one of the lowest tariff regimes for cars in the world. We have horticultural exports. We have defence exports. The northern suburbs exports a lot more than just cars. You should acknowledge that we are really the engine room for South Australia. We produce most of the wealth of the state and we do not get much credit for it. I remember that the Olsen government promised just before an election never to privatise electricity—of course, they did. Consumers in my electorate suffered price rises of up to 30 per cent.

Mr Ramsey interjecting—

That had a very big effect, and we can go back and debate the merits of privatisation and debt recovery versus higher prices and the like, but the one thing that was not done for the state by Country Liberals during that period was to provide any sort of universal service obligation on our electricity producers. It was forced on the federal Liberals by the National Party during the Telstra privatisation, but there was absolutely no attempt to look after country residents during the electricity privatisation. There was absolutely no attempt to make sure that in the future—10, 15, 20 years down the track—the provision of essential electricity infrastructure would be there for towns like Clare or Balaklava or even for areas closer to the city. In my electorate there are many country businesses which face significant costs to get connected to the grid, but no Country Liberal looked after them when the privatisation went through.

It is a very big problem for both parties, to be fair, but it is not something that is well talked about. It is not true to say that just the people of Coober Pedy or other towns affected by this particular subsidy program have been affected. Everybody outside the metropolitan area, and even some people in the outer suburbs, have been affected by the changes to our electricity network. I think that if the member for Grey were being a little bit more sincere he would acknowledge that fact and have a look at proposing that perhaps there should be a bit of cross-party lobbying for any future South Australian government to set up some obligations. As I said, I have constituents who burn $50,000 or $60,000 worth of diesel every year during vintage season. That is mainly because of privatisation issues.

Opposition members interjecting—

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