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to go ahead with through this Assembly. I need to say to Ms Horodny that ultimately it will be this Assembly that decides the type of legislation that will go through; not the Liberal Party, but this Assembly. We will have an adequate opportunity of debating that further later on this afternoon.

Mr Speaker, it is important to note that, if ACTEW is not positioned as soon as possible to compete on an equal footing with other utilities, it could lose many of its commercial industrial customers. For anyone not to realise that is to have their eyes shut, because that is the experience throughout the world, throughout the country. If the ACT Legislative Assembly wants to sit on its hands and do nothing, so be it. It can decide to do that later on this afternoon. Certainly, this Government will not be a party to that, Mr Speaker. This Government will make sure that we put ACTEW, as much as we can, on an equal footing.

Ms Horodny started talking about the unions. Had Ms Horodny gone and spoken to the unions that work within the ACTEW framework, she would have known that the majority of those unions, if not all of them, came to the agreement that, per se, corporatisation was okay. You could have picked up the phone, rung them up and asked them, as we did. Ms Horodny should also be aware of a letter signed by Jeremy Pyner, the secretary of the Trades and Labour Council - not someone who is enamoured of Liberal Party philosophy, I must tell you. He is not going to jump around and say what a wonderful mob the Liberals are. Jeremy Pyner, in a letter on 16 June to a Ms Katie Reardon of ACTEW, said this:

Dear Katie,

Further to our phone call the following is for your attention.

Following a meeting of ACTEW unions held this morning -

this is dated 16 June -

the following resolution was made:

This meeting of the TLC accepts in principle the corporatisation of ACTEW.

Mr Berry: Why is there a picket line on out at West Belconnen?

MR DE DOMENICO: This is for Mr Berry's ears:

This meeting of the TLC accepts in principle the corporatisation of ACTEW.

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