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This is a Bill, not an Act. For current law, see the Acts databases.
South Australia
Essential Services Commission (Electricity, Gas, Water
and Sewerage Prices) Amendment Bill 2012
A BILL FOR
An Act to amend the Essential
Services Commission Act 2002.
Contents
Part 1—Preliminary
1Short
title
2Amendment provisions
Part 2—Amendment of Essential Services
Commission Act 2002
3Insertion of section
26A
26AParliament may
disallow certain price determinations
The Parliament of South Australia enacts as
follows:
This Act may be cited as the Essential Services Commission (Electricity,
Gas, Water and Sewerage Prices) Amendment Act 2012.
In this Act, a provision under a heading referring to the amendment of a
specified Act amends the Act so specified.
Part 2—Amendment
of Essential Services Commission
Act 2002
After section 26 insert:
26A—Parliament may disallow certain price
determinations
(1) If the Commission
makes a price determination in relation to a relevant essential service that
involves a disallowable price increase, the Commission must, within 28 days
after the making of the determination, deliver to the Minister a report that
sets out the determination and the reasons for the determination.
(2) The Minister must
cause a copy of the report to be laid before both Houses of Parliament within
6 sitting days after receipt of the report.
(3) A House of
Parliament may, pursuant to a notice of motion given in the House within
14 sitting days after the report is laid before the House under
subsection (2),
resolve to disallow the determination.
(4) Notice of a resolution passed under
subsection (3) must
immediately be published in the Gazette.
(5) If a House of
Parliament passes a resolution disallowing a price determination then the
determination ceases to have effect (and the immediately preceding price
determination will, from that time, apply until a fresh determination is made by
the Commission under this Part).
Consumer Price Index means the Consumer Price Index (All
groups index for Adelaide) published by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics;
disallowable price increase, in relation to a price
determination, means a price increase that results in the median charges for the
service under the price determination (when compared with the median charges
under the immediately preceding price determination) being more than double any
increase in those charges that would have resulted from an indexed price
increase;
median charges, in relation to a relevant essential service,
means the charges determined by the Commission for the purposes of this section
as representing the annual charges for the service for a residential customer
with an average annual consumption level of the service;
quarter 1—subject to
subsection (8),
quarter 1 means the quarter that immediately precedes the quarter in which
the immediately preceding price determination referred to in
subsection (7) came
into effect;
quarter 2—subject to
subsection (8),
quarter 2 means the quarter that immediately precedes the quarter in which
the determination referred to in
subsection (1) is to
come into effect;
relevant essential service means any of the following
essential services:
(a) electricity services;
(b) gas services;
(c) water services;
(d) sewerage services.
(7) For the purposes of
the definition of disallowable price increase in
subsection (6), the
indexed price increase in relation to median charges is obtained
by multiplying the relevant price under the immediately preceding price
determination by a proportion obtained by dividing the Consumer Price Index for
quarter 2 by the Consumer Price Index for quarter 1.
(8) For the purposes of
the definitions of quarter 1 and quarter 2
in
subsection (6), if
an immediately preceding quarter ended on a day that falls within 30 days
of the day on which the relevant price determination came into effect or is to
come into effect (as the case may be), that immediately preceding quarter is not
to be used to calculate the indexed price increase, and the quarter that
immediately precedes that immediately preceding quarter is to be used
instead.