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Mr Berry: This is not an auction, Harold. We want details.

MR HIRD: Mr Berry, listen and you will learn, for a change. In the competitive environment where consumers will have a choice, it will become even more important in 1996 for ACTEW to improve on its already high standards in the area of customer service. ACTEW will be able to effectively meet these challenges only if it is corporatised.

We in the ACT need to provide the best possible framework for ACTEW’s future, to make sure that it can continue to be at the forefront of utilities in this country. To do otherwise would be an abrogation of our responsibilities as representatives of this community. Examples from around the nation show that corporatisation is the path to follow to ensure this. It becomes evident that corporatisation will mean the lowest possible pricing of services, combined with the highest possible quality of consumer service consistent with a fair return to government and the community on investment.

Corporatisation will provide not only benefits to the ACT consumer but also gains to ACTEW staff - listen to this, Mr Berry - by providing the organisation with the flexibility to innovate and compete with the private utilities, including several New South Wales utilities which will be vying with ACTEW for market share; by accelerating current programs to increase skills and productivity of employees; by tailoring awards for employment of staff by ACTEW Corporation to suit industry conditions rather than those of the wider public service; and by tailoring enterprise bargaining to speed up the reform of work practices that inhibit efficiency. This will not be a disadvantage to staff of ACTEW. They will maintain their current terms of employment, whilst the red tape of the public service will be removed. In fact, Mr Speaker, in my discussions I have found that staff see this as a positive move because they can see that a more efficient ACTEW will be able to save jobs rather than lose them to competitors such as Pacific Power from New South Wales.

Corporatisation will assist ACTEW to compete and remain profitable in the national electricity market from 1 July 1996. Mr De Domenico, as Minister, is to be commended. Corporatisation will provide more precise commercial measures and a commitment to increasing efficiency and innovations, and it will provide an organisation which will meet its obligations under the competition reform process. On the other side of the coin, Mr Speaker, if ACTEW is not corporatised by 1 July this year, the various utilities, such as Pacific Power, already courting the commercial consumers of the ACT, in particular the Federal Parliament House, will be in a better position to attract significant market share. This will be due to ACTEW’s decreased ability to compete in cost, efficiency and service and subsequently will result in a drop in revenue which will have serious implications for remaining customers and the ACT community at large, Mr Speaker.

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