Lia Finocchiaro gives budget reply speech after Michael Gunner’s resignation

Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro has blasted Nicole Manison, saying she had been the Territory’s ‘worst ever treasurer’ during her first stint in the role.

UPDATE 10.30AM WED: OPPOSITION Leader Lia Finocchiaro has taken aim at Nicole Manison during her budget reply speech, branding her the Territory’s “worst performing Treasurer”.

Ms Manison has stepped in as Acting Treasurer and Acting Chief Minister after the resignation of Michael Gunner on Tuesday. She was previously Treasurer before 2020.

Branding her “MasterCard Manison”, Ms Finocchiaro expressed alarm at Ms Manison’s return to the role.

“Whose first budget took the Territory’s debt levels from $1.8b in 2016 to a whopping $5.7b in one short year?

“You could not have messed that up more if you tried.”

Ms Finocchiaro said Ms Manison was stripped of the treasury portfolio after a “catastrophic budget failure” and that the current leadership saga was reminding her of the Rudd-Gillard era.

Michael Gunner’s final budget, handed down on Tuesday, posted a $1.1b deficit and predicted the government will have racked up $9.7b in debt by 2024.

Ms Finocchiaro said the budget was a “budget of quitters” and asked what services Labor planned to cut to bring the Territory government back into surplus.

Solar tariff to double under CLP renewables plan

OPPOSITION leader Lia Finocchiaro will announce a CLP government would double the solar feed-in tariff if elected, in a bid to help the Northern Territory halve its carbon emissions by 2030.

Ms Finocchiaro will use her Budget reply speech on Wednesday to announce the measure, following the Territory Labor government’s decision to slash the legacy feed-in tariff from 26 cents to just 9 cents a kilowatt hour.

The CLP would increase the tariff to up to 20 cents a kilowatt hour and introduce new technology to create a network of battery, or ‘virtual grid’, to help Territorians to feed energy back into the grid and reduce fossil fuel reliance.

The feed-in tariff would vary depending on demand and time of day, with the 20 cents a kilowatt hour rate offered during peak demand, between 4pm and 7pm.

Ms Finocchiaro said the plan would create “greater grid stability, lower cost of living pressures and a greener future for our kids”.

CLP Leader of the Opposition Lia Finocchiaro. Picture: Glenn Campbell

“Unlike Labor which has cut incentives to invest in solar and punished everyday Territorians for supporting renewables, the CLP is revolutionising the way Territory households store and sell solar energy, starting with reinvesting the $12m of Labor cuts to solar,” she said.

“This is major renewable energy policy reform that Labor has been too narrow-minded to achieve.

“Instead reverting to punishing Territorians for its own wasteful spending instead of putting in place the building blocks of the future.”

“Unlike Labor’s sneaky and punitive policy – everyone wins with the CLP.”

The energy plan comes amid growing cost of living pressures, with Tuesday’s Budget noting that inflation had hit 5.7 per cent.