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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3450 ..

3.

Members are no doubt aware that the reform is now well underway in both Victoria and NSW. Victoria is now moving to a situation in which about half the total energy is supplied to customers who have been given the freedom to choose their own retailer. NSW will have caught up with Victoria by July 1998. The South Australian and the Queensland Governments have announced that they will start opening up their retail markets in 1998.

The Electricity Supply Bill provides a regulatory framework to facilitate a similar transition in the ACT - a transition from ACTEW Corporation's de facto monopoly status to a situation in which there are many electricity retailers operating in the ACT so customers can choose their preferred retailer.

In introducing the National Market legislation, I commented that we are, paradoxically, not talking about "deregulation" in the ACT. The same is true for the Electricity Supply Bill. The fact is that the ACT has regulatory arrangements for electricity retailing that are minimal compared with those of those of other jurisdictions - even those in place long before competition was thought of.

Our regulatory arrangements are totally unsatisfactory for competition in electricity retailing. They do not provide for the many electricity retailers that might want to do business in the ACT. There is a clear assumption throughout the Energy and Water Act that ACTEW is the only supplier. The present arrangements therefore provide no consumer assurances about the quality of supply from any other retailers.

Let me now turn to the principal features of the legislation.

There are two points that must be made first of all.

The first point is that it is necessary to make a clear distinction between the two parts of the electricity supply industry in the ACT. ACTEW's electricity

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