The curtains at Chateau Barnett in Claremont billow as a refreshing breeze from the nearby Indian Ocean competes with cool gusts from the even closer waters of Freshwater Bay.
Inside the house, the Premier has slipped into his white terry-towelling robe and is about to open an ice bucket-cooled bottle of Marlborough semillon sauvignon blanc.
Air-con? Who needs air-con, he might mutter as he opens the bay windows a little wider.
"We do," scream the thousands of people living 30 minutes to the east of Claremont. Areas which the Fremantle Doctor rarely penetrates and, if it can, does so as a sticky waft of air that has been super-heated on its journey through the baking streets of Armadale and Midland.
Telling people who are struggling to pay their electricity bills that air-con is an unnecessary extravagance is a logical argument for a politician to make - as long as that politician is an ALP member representing an electorate east of the freeway.
When the politician giving the advice is the member for one of Australia's wealthiest beachside enclaves, and who has ordered the monstrous increases in electricity prices that are draining savings accounts across WA, the argument loses its impact.
Strangely, given how strident Mr Barnett was on this issue in question time yesterday, found no record in Hansard of his indignation in 2007 when air-conditioning was installed in the Legislative Assembly at a cost to taxpayers of $660,000.
Anyone walking into Governor Stirling Tower, where the Department of Premier and Cabinet is based, knows just how deliciously frosty the air drifting out of that foyer is on a hot January day.
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Premier Colin Barnett claims Perth homes do not need air-conditioners as the debate on rising power bills heats up.
The remarks came during a debate on electricity prices in Parliament yesterday, and after Perth has sweltered through the hottest October in 41 years and the warmest start to November in more than a century.
Opposition leader Eric Ripper said it would cost West Australians $270 to cool each room in their homes this summer.
Basing his figures on information provided by the Office of Energy and consumer group Choice, Mr Ripper said it would cost 51 cents an hour to run a 7.4kW reverse-cycle split-system, thanks to a 46 per cent increase in power prices approved by the government.
But Mr Barnett, who represents the leafy beachside electorate of Cottesloe and lives in nearby Claremont, told Parliament it was “not necessary” for Perth homes to have air-conditioners.
“Well we don’t have any air-conditioning in our house,” he said.
Sure, it’s great the Liberal Party knows that it can’t appear callous about the poor being unable to afford necessities. That’s a start. But it’s a shame that the Labor Party seems not to be advocating any better than that, so that the whole debate depends on whether or not air-conditioning in Perth’s summers is indeed necessary.
Perth is really bloody hot in summer, and the last few years have seen record-breaking heat. So can’t we all agree that while it may not be strictly necessary, it’s a pretty basic first-world luxury and we should be sympathetic towards those who don’t have it simply because they can’t afford it?linkBarnett’s government, on coming to office, got told by its energy advisers that an increase north of 75 per cent was really needed, but it has opted to start with a 26 per cent increase. Another 15 per cent or so is round the corner for consumers.
All of which gave Opposition leader Eric Ripper the chance to ask Barnett in state parliament if he understood that householders will be paying $270 per room for split-system air-conditioners this summer. Whereupon Barnett informed his Perth and Fremantle voters that he didn’t have air-conditioning at home and most of them didn’t need it “in our Mediterranean climate.”
Barnett lives in Claremont, five minutes brisk walk from the sea, with the so-called “Fremantle Doctor” – a cooling afternoon sea breeze – literally on his doorstep, and works in air-conditioned offices and a parliament air-conditioned at a cost of $660,000 by general MP agreement a few years ago. “And comes to work in an air-conditioned car, too,” growled some of vox populi.
Talk-back radio and other social media have been flooded with people with a view on the subject, few of them clapping vigorously, perhaps because the WA capital has just had its hottest October in four decades and its warmest November for about a century.
Heating and cooling (and mostly the latter) now account for 26 per cent of an average West Australian family’s household bill, second only to water heating (32 per cent).
At the start of the past decade WA’s summer peak load requirement was 2,473 megawatts. It is expected to pass 4,000 MW this summer and hit 6,500 MW by the start of the next decade. The government-owned Western Power networks business has plans to invest about $3 billion in development of its system in the next four years, a fair bit of that needed for days of extreme weather.
In Perth, 35C is expected for Christmas Day.
