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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3555 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The signing of the intergovernmental agreement on gas industry reform is planned. Some Assembly members may recall that in February 1994 COAG agreed to implement a uniform national framework for the access rights to natural gas supply networks to facilitate free and fair trade in natural gas within and between jurisdictions. The ACT's signatory to that agreement was, of course, the then Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett. It should be noted that the implementation of the gas reforms is an explicit condition of the Commonwealth's competition payments to the States and Territories. If they are not implemented, the ACT will not receive the second tranche of the first part of the national competition payments, expected to total more than $6.6m. The agreement will commit governments to pass national gas pipelines access laws based on lead legislation to be passed by South Australia in November 1997. This will enable access regimes to be certified by the National Competition Council both for payments and for competition to begin on 1 July 1998. The benefits will include greater choice for consumers and environmental benefits.

Following COAG will be the first meeting of the Treaties Council. This body was set up as part of increasing the Commonwealth's accountability to States and Territories for its involvement in treaty negotiation. At this meeting the items listed for discussion include the World Trade Organisation agreement on government procurement; the World Trade Organisation negotiations on financial services; the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People; the draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

I thank members for giving me the opportunity to advise on the outcomes of the Leaders Forum meeting and to foreshadow the issues that will be discussed at the meeting of heads of government on Thursday and Friday this week. Madam Deputy Speaker, this will be an important meeting, as COAG meetings always are. This will be only the third COAG meeting that has occurred since we have come to government, as they seem to be somewhat less regular now than previously. I present the following paper:

Leaders Forum and COAG - ministerial statement, 4 November 1997.

I move:

That the Assembly takes note of the paper.

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (4.10): Madam Deputy Speaker, nowhere has the difference between Labor and Liberal been better demonstrated than in the Carnell Liberal Government's handling of COAG negotiations. Under successive Follett governments we were able to achieve better outcomes than we have under the Carnell Government. The Carnell Liberal Government has not represented the ACT well at the COAG meetings. The first sign of the problems to come was at Kate Carnell's first attendance. We saw supplementation cut to $15m - much less than the Follett governments had achieved in the past. But "What was the $15m for?" is the very important question. Around $10m of it was for the second major disaster of that meeting - the Acton-Kingston land swap. Most of the $10m was to clean up the Acton Peninsula for the Commonwealth when it was handed over. Most of the money was to be spent demolishing the old Royal Canberra Hospital.

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