Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Price caps simply do not work. This is a longstanding truism in politics and economics. It was true in recent times in South America, as it was true back in Roman times. The edict on maximum prices led to a period of chaos. It's true because it tries to defy the laws of supply and demand. You simply can't reduce supply, maintain demand and expect to see prices come down. The Treasurer may seek to rewrite capitalism, but he cannot rewrite the law of supply and demand. It's true in theory, it's true in practice and it's very true in the good area of Groom.

I have a letter from my peak development body, the RDA, that points out exactly how much price caps have immediately impacted our area. For us, the energy sector is a huge component; 6.6 per cent per cent of our workforce come from it, and 31.8 per cent of our region's economic output comes from our energy sector. It's terribly important. Sadly—and I read from the RDA letter, referring to the price caps:

… the impact of the recent announcement is already being borne negatively in our regional area.

… many of the large multi-nationals have paused project pipelines and other capital investment, including Shell QGC, Origin and Senex. For our local contractors, the effect has been devastating. These multi-nationals can so easily make the decision to operate and invest somewhere else, however the contractors and workers in our region cannot.

This is what happens with intervention of this sort. The big guys can move elsewhere; they're multinationals. They can move where there's a beneficial advantage to them. But local people cannot. Local workers cannot follow that cycle. It goes on:

The CSG industry is very project driven and disruption to the project 'pipeline' such as the project pauses … by Senex and QGC … have an instant impact on business confidence across the whole of our region …

I think the worst part in this correspondence is where it says this:

Feedback received directly from businesses in our region indicates that it is incredibly difficult for small local businesses to future plan this industry and to implement such a change with limited notice. This includes flow on effecting to dependant tier 2/3/4 businesses right down to local jobs, housing and even sponsorship of kid's sporting teams.

There's a reason I'm opposed to price caps. It's because they don't work. What they inevitably do is drive down investment, which drives down supply and only has one impact, which is raising long-term prices. That is the cycle that we have got ourselves caught in. This is a policy that is already negatively affecting regions like mine. It's a failed policy, and there's only one outcome we can be assured of, which is that prices will go up. To the people of Groom who have been affected by this policy: please be clear that I stand opposed to it and I will continue to oppose it.