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My biggest concern in this whole debate and this whole issue, Mr Speaker, was how the normal people, my next-door neighbours, would benefit or suffer from a corporatised ACTEW. As far as I am concerned, ACTEW is a great operation. I remember that when I first moved down to Canberra we arrived in town on a Sunday afternoon and we had our power turned on the first day. I had lived in Sydney for 25 years and thought that if you got the power turned on within three weeks you were lucky. I have always had a very good opinion of ACTEW. The biggest consideration for me was: Why change? I have listened to both sides of this debate tonight. A lot of the points that the Labor Party have brought up have been very valid.

To be quite honest, in the last week I have felt a very important person. I have been visited by every bureaucrat in relation to ACTEW. Dr Sargent came to see me a couple of times. Peter Phillips - the chairman - and Jim Service came to see me. Just about every member of the Liberal Party involved with it came to see me. I must say that my ego has been somewhat inflated by all the attention I have received.

MR SPEAKER: It does tend to happen here, Mr Osborne.

MR OSBORNE: Yes. To be fair, I have had many a meeting with Mr Whitecross, who, I think, has put up some good arguments. I have also spoken to Mr Berry a couple of times, but I question - - -

Mr Berry: I even went out to watch him play football.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Interjections are out of order, particularly when you are out of your chair.

MR OSBORNE: He came out and watched me play football, and I think we spoke about it even there. But I question Mr Berry's involvement along that line of ideology. I still had not been convinced. To be quite frank, I was a little bit disappointed initially with the way it was handled and the fact that I myself had to chase many of the details that I was looking for. I heard all the arguments, and the same thing came back to me: Why change?

One thing that really stuck in my mind, I suppose, was that the national grid coming in next year is a very valid argument. Although we have a very efficient ACTEW, we have to come to the realisation that a mob like Pacific Power, which works all the way around our Territory, is going to pose a big threat. The thought of losing the monopoly in the ACT caused me to give the matter a lot of thought. Dr Sargent mentioned the possibility of losing Parliament House, which turns over $10m for ACTEW every year. You would be a fool not to agree that that was a concern. But still I had not been convinced completely. It is very hard for the Labor Party to accept the corporatisation of ACTEW, but Labor parties outside of the ACT are going down this path. I could see that the tide was turning. It is a little bit like the republic debate. No matter what you think, I think a republic is inevitable. That is the way it is going. I also formed the view that that was perhaps the way corporatisation was going, whether or not you like it.

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