Page 3379 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 September 1991
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I was interested to hear Mr Berry indicate, when the former Chief Minister, Mr Kaine, was speaking, that they still have not decided whether they are going to go ahead with it. I suppose that is heartening. I thought it was painfully obvious when the Labor Party took power that they were shelving it; that they had no intention of going ahead with the corporatisation of ACTEW. I reiterate what I said when they made that decision back in mid-June: Do not be blinkered by your stupid ideology; do what is best for the ACT. I think that would be the corporatisation of ACTEW.
MR DUBY (4.27): Mr Speaker, some of the comments made by Mr Stefaniak in his address are quite relevant to the status of ACTEW, as the largest government employer and the largest government entity in the ACT, in relation to the financing of quite a number of issues within the ACT Government. I noticed in the Bill brought down earlier this afternoon by the Chief Minister that the level of contribution, if you want to put it that way, that has been extracted from ACTEW is some $19m. That is a large increase on the amount of revenue obtained from them in the past. I take Mr Berry at his word when he says that the decision about the corporatisation of ACTEW has not yet been finalised.
Mr Berry: No. No decision has been made.
MR DUBY: Well, no decision has been made, or a decision has not been finalised, or whatever; it is immaterial how you want to put it, I guess. What you are saying is that you are not going to make a decision, I guess.
I would like to think that, with those figures in mind, the whole issue of corporatisation is something which should be identified. It is clear that ACTEW is already a reasonably efficient public authority. However, further extraction of funds from ACTEW cannot continue at this rate without providing ACTEW management with the possibility of behaving as a corporate citizen and making sound financial and management decisions about the way that it should operate.
There is no doubt in my mind that, if the current rate of exploitation of ACTEW assets continues - the expropriation of assets - it will go from an organisation which currently funds itself, in effect, in terms of its income, to being a borrower. That raises the issue of how on earth ACTEW, at the end of this decade, for example, having gone from an organisation with a very sound financial base to one which probably will be in debt to the tune of some $90m, is going to be able to raise $100m of further debt to service a new dam.
The issue we are talking about here, I think, is a very simple one. There is no question that ACTEW has the legislative authority to set charges for water, electricity and sewerage services. That is under the Electricity and Water Act, section 48. That very simple statement, I
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