Barnett tells battlers to turn air-con off

Colin Barnett has suggested people struggling to pay soaring electricity bills should turn off their air-conditioners, saying they are not necessary in Perth's climate.

The Premier questioned why air-conditioning was now considered a "necessity of life" when a decade ago it was deemed a luxury.

"I certainly recognise that for elderly people, people who are unwell, perhaps are bed-ridden, that air-conditioning can be an essential part of living in a hot climate," he said.

"Yes in the Pilbara, in the Kimberley, in very hot places. But when did it become a necessity of life to have air-conditioning?"

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show 74 per cent of WA#39;s 800,800 households used air-conditioners in 2006, almost doubling from 40 per cent in 1992.

Mr Barnett was responding in State Parliament to Opposition Leader Eric Ripper, who asked whether the Premier would use next month's mid-year review of the WA Budget to offer any relief to households struggling to pay power bills, who faced a "miserable, hot and poor" Christmas.

Mr Ripper said Government figures showed that this summer households with split-system air-conditioners would spend $270 to cool each room.

Mr Barnett, who is the member for Cottesloe and lives in Claremont, said: "I don't have any air-conditioning in my house.

"It is an interesting observation that suddenly now, in our Mediterranean climate, in Perth and in the southern part of the State that air-conditioning is now deemed to be a necessity. I don't think it is."

Outside Parliament, Mr Ripper described Mr Barnett's comments as "ridiculous, arrogant and out of touch".

"When the day is at its hottest, Colin Barnett is in his air-conditioned office or his air-conditioned car," he said.

"A young mother at home with young children or an elderly person away from the workforce are in a hot house and expect to be able to run their air-conditioner but these days the price of electricity is going to deter people."

WA Council of Social Service chief executive Sue Ash said not everyone in WA's south could comfortably go through summer without air-conditioning. She said many older houses in established suburbs away from the coast required air-conditioning.