Page 827 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
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out in a truck, no matter what the weather conditions, putting the power back on again. In New South Wales the average time a consumer is without power in a year is 186 minutes, Queensland 99 minutes, South Australia 84 minutes, Tasmania 91 minutes, Victoria 123 minutes, Western Australia 72 minutes, and the ACT 55 minutes - the best delivery of service in the country.
Mr Cornwell: But what about the size of the Territory?
MR CONNOLLY: This lot chuckle away. They do not get into the hard data; they do not get into the research. They jump up here with an MPI, trying to suggest that ACTEW is not an efficient organisation and that it needs micro-economic reform. They are not even aware of research data that shows that this organisation is delivering a service to its customers better and more efficiently than other areas. That does not mean that ACTEW can rest on its laurels.
Mr Kaine: They can do it even better.
MR CONNOLLY: They can do even better, says Mr Kaine, and I expect them to do so. I expect that we will show that that is occurring. Let us look at the ACTEW annual report. ACTEW is in a somewhat unusual position. If you look at page 52 of the annual report, many of their costs are fixed. We purchase electricity in from New South Wales, so that is a fixed cost; we have a depreciation cost, which is essentially a fixed cost; and we have an interest cost. Our controllable expenses are operations of external services and administration and general - our costing, in effect, of our internal work force.
If we look at the controllable costs over the last couple of years we see that they went from $87.6m in 1990-91 to $89.745m for the current financial year, and next financial year we will be limiting it to $87.56m. So we are bringing our controllable costs down by 2 per cent in real dollars, in a period when ACTEW is increasing the number of consumers it services every year by about 3 per cent and with an inflation rate of about 3 per cent. In dollar terms, not real terms - - -
Mr De Domenico: What is the inflation rate?
MR CONNOLLY: The New South Wales Government is operating on 4 per cent for its increased charges, so we will say 3 per cent for the ACT. We will be generous; we will take it one per cent under. That is showing an efficiency dividend of about 6 per cent, which is pretty damned good for an organisation, and I would expect that sort of efficiency dividend to continue over the years.
Mr Moore: What about the dividend?
MR CONNOLLY: If we look at the staff of ACTEW, I showed you the productivity per worker in ACTEW, which is very high - the highest in the country. People do not seem to think that is an achievement; but I am pretty damned proud of it, and I would expect that ACTEW should be too. Over the last three years the ACTEW employment base has not increased by a single worker; it has remained the same. In each of those three years we have had a roughly 3 per cent growth in the number of customers we serve. As we all know, and we are all proud of this in Canberra, this is the fastest growing region in the country. ACTEW has delivered those increased services - the 3 per cent a year growth in the number of consumers - while maintaining its labour force.
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