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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1623 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

It is good that we are now seeing interest from Labor and Liberal in the environmental accounting process, which we raised early in 1996 through amendments to the Financial Management Bill. I look forward with great interest to seeing the status paper and the draft options paper on that issue. There is a recommendation that future ACT budgets include a separately identifiable budget for environment protection, at the least including those elements of the ACT budget that fall directly under the portfolio of the Minister. I am pleased to see that that is in there, and I will talk a bit about that in more detail later.

In respect of the general issues, there were some very serious issues in each portfolio for the committee to consider. Obviously, the decision to return to the Government an extra $100m from ACTEW and to increase the dividend to $48m is an issue of great concern, because once again the Government has claimed that it is not borrowing any new money. For the Greens, the irony of this decision is that a government that corporatised ACTEW so that it could manage its own affairs then moves in and takes so much out of its financial base. We find that quite interesting. It is also ironic. While we did not support corporatisation - and I want to make that point clear - it is interesting that there is such inconsistency from the Government. When we have asked the Government to show some influence in terms of ACTEW's environmental performance, we have often heard from Ministers in this place, "It is none of my business. ACTEW will run it and make its own decisions". So, it is rather inconsistent.

Anyway, now that the Government has set a precedent for itself in using its position as a shareholder to make decisions that will have a significant impact on ACTEW's management, we look forward to a very positive response to the recommendation about green power. The Government and ACTEW seem to be looking for excuses to not pursue this issue. Again, this is slightly ironic coming from a government that is supposed to be about maximising consumer choice. It has done no work to ascertain the level of consumer demand for such a scheme in the ACT, despite the fact that there has been strong interest in New South Wales. The Government also claimed during the estimates process that the price would be double, which is very unfortunate. Either they have not done their research or they are choosing the extreme position. In Queanbeyan, Great Southern Energy has established the "earthsaver" scheme, and it is advertising this as costing the average household, with a quarterly bill of $160, $3 more for the 100 per cent green power option and as little as $1.50 more for a 50 per cent option. Every retailer in New South Wales will be offering green power options. If this Government is so keen on a cooperative regional approach, it should make sure that the ACT as well can offer such a scheme to consumers. Electricity from methane gas at landfills will be available soon. That would certainly be a green power source.

The cuts to the ACT Public Service were an issue of interest in the Estimates Committee. We know that at least 700 people took redundancies this year, although there was certainly a discrepancy between what the Government was saying in its purchase agreements and what was said during the estimates process. Another issue that I do not think the Government responded to adequately during the estimates process is the

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