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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2074 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

If Mr Whitecross had read the estimates documents or talked to his housing spokesman, he might have seen also that for 1997-98 the maintenance budget is the biggest it has been over the last four financial years. When the Labor Party was in government in 1994-95 the maintenance expenditure in the recurrent area was $16.2m and capital expenditure was $3.7m, a total of $19.9m. In 1995-96 it was $12.2m recurrent and $9.3m capital, a total of $21.5m. In 1996-97 it was $13.8m recurrent and $4.7m capital, a total of $18.5m. In 1997-98 it is $19.3m recurrent and $7.9m capital, a total of $27.2m. That is $7.3m more than in the last Labor budget. Maybe he has his figures wrong, Mr Hird. Maybe he meant to say that we are spending $7m more than they did in their last year of government.

MR HIRD: I have a supplementary question for the Minister, Mr Speaker. Is Mr Whitecross going to apologise for misleading people on this subject?

MR SPEAKER: I am sorry; I am ruling that question out of order.

MS McRAE: My question without notice is to Mrs Carnell in her capacity as Chief Minister. Chief Minister, I refer to the consultancy which you have employed Fay Richwhite and Associates to do in respect of a study of ACTEW. Are you aware that Fay Richwhite and Associates have been closely associated with the process of preparing Pacific Power in New South Wales for privatisation and were involved in the privatisation of the Bank of New Zealand and New Zealand Rail? Is it the case that you have engaged them to prepare ACTEW for sale?

MRS CARNELL: The answer to that is no.

MS McRAE: I have a supplementary question. Is it not the case that Fay Richwhite and Associates are privatisation specialists who are hired by governments to sell off public assets? Why should the community believe that the sale of ACTEW is not being prepared?

MRS CARNELL: When I think about what the community can believe, I think of some of those wonderful statements by Michael Egan, that well-known Treasurer from the Labor Party, about selling power authorities, saying, "Never, never, never, never, never will we ever sell". I think those opposite should be a tiny bit careful in this sort of area.

Ms McRae: So you are saying what Michael Egan is saying, are you? We are listening.

MR SPEAKER: Never, never, never interject.

MRS CARNELL: Never, never interject. One of the terms of reference, as I understand it, is certainly not to sell ACTEW. What we are doing is making sure that ACTEW does have a future and making sure that we know what will happen with ACTEW, its capital structure, its whole business entity, on the basis of deregulation; what will happen to ACTEW - one of the greatest and most important capital assets that this community has - once we go into a fully deregulated market.

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