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Financial Review . . Page.. 900 ..

Mrs Carnell: To be flexible.

MR CONNOLLY: Flexible, yes. I am sure that lots of workers know what flexibility means. It usually means a brown envelope with a blue slip in it saying, “Thank you, sir. You are going to be more flexible; go and collect your redundancy pay”.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Connolly, your time has expired.

Ms McRae: Mr Speaker, as a trivial point of order: According to which clock? They are completely different.

MR SPEAKER: I will explain that shortly.

MR CONNOLLY: I was watching that clock, Mr Speaker. I was just coming up to my peroration. (Extension of time granted)

Whatever your stated policy goals are, there is no reason why you cannot achieve them under the statutory authority framework. In order to get support from the community for this proposal, and particularly in order to justify racing this thing through - - -

Mrs Carnell: We tried to get ACTEW incorporated.

MR CONNOLLY: You have tried nothing. You have been in government for three or four months. In order to justify these changes, you must explain what it is that you want to achieve. To date, you have achieved nothing other than rhetoric and a few dinosaur jokes.

MR SPEAKER: Ms McRae quite properly raised a problem. I advise members that, due to a malfunction of the timing clocks, the bell will ring with two minutes remaining rather than the normal one minute. So, when the bell rings you will know that you have two minutes instead of one, unfortunately.

MR HIRD (8.46): Mr Speaker, I would like to draw Mr Connolly's attention to the Financial Review of 9 June 1995. It says of New South Wales, which has a Labor government, “NSW takes first bite on the power-reform bullet”. New South Wales does that because they know that they are coming down here.

Mr Speaker, it is with great enthusiasm that I rise in support of this Bill. During the past weeks we have heard debate from both sides of the Assembly about the significant benefits and perceived drawbacks of corporatisation. It is reassuring to note that, whilst the Opposition opposes ACTEW corporatisation on ideological grounds, the four members sitting on the cross benches have all said that they do not share that view. This indicates that they understand the obvious business and community benefits which will flow from the move. It is equally pleasing to note that the New South Wales Labor Government has announced that 13 key government agencies will be corporatised by 1 January 1996 to improve efficiency and reduce charges to that State’s investors and consumers, making electricity and water cheaper in New South Wales than in Victoria and Queensland.

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