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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3740 ..

MR SPEAKER: Is it the wish of the Assembly to debate this order of the day concurrently with the Electricity (National Scheme) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 1997? There being no objection, that course will be followed. I remind members that in debating order of the day No. 5 they may also debate order of the day No. 6.

MR WHITECROSS (3.39): Mr Speaker, the Electricity (National Scheme) Bill and the Electricity (National Scheme) (Consequential Amendments) Bill deal with the ACT's participation in the national electricity market, which was one of the agreements in the national competition agreement, the goal for which is 29 March next year. Mr Speaker, the ACT already participates in a competitive market for electricity within New South Wales, and Victoria operates a competitive market for electricity within Victoria. This is at the wholesale level. This would allow for the joining together of these markets into a national market which, I understand, will also include Queensland and South Australia.

Mr Speaker, the benefit to ACT customers of competition at the wholesale level is that it enables us to choose our suppliers, to buy electricity off the grid at the best price and to manage our electricity demands more effectively. In particular, Mr Speaker, competition amongst suppliers will help to ensure that the price paid is a fair price and not a price set by monopoly suppliers in other States. As a jurisdiction that does not generate our own electricity, we, perhaps more than most, are able to benefit from this kind of competition at the wholesale market level. This legislation, once again, adopts legislation already passed in the South Australian Parliament - the National Electricity Law. I understand that there is also a National Electricity Code being developed by the ACCC; but that is not yet finalised, particularly sections to do with Part 6 of that code.

Mr Speaker, the Labor Party will be supporting this legislation. We believe that, as part of the agreement on the national electricity scheme, there are benefits to ACT consumers at all levels. I believe that it is perhaps accidental, but nevertheless fortuitous, that these Bills are being debated before the electricity supply Bills, because logically competition at the wholesale level, I think, should be preceding competition at the retail level, and that competition at the wholesale level probably has more to offer the majority of consumers in the ACT than competition at the retail level. But that is a matter that we can debate later.

When it comes to the detail stage, I will be moving amendments, in relation to the consequential amendments Bill, dealing with the coverage by the FOI Act and the Public Interest Disclosure Act of ACT entities in their participation in the national electricity market as agents of NEMMCO or NECA. I will discuss this further in the detail stage; but, in short, the Labor Party does not agree that, in relation to non-commercial matters, ACTEW or anyone else should be exempt from FOI legislation just because they are acting at that particular moment as an agent of NEMMCO or NECA. Nor do I believe that the provisions of the Public Interest Disclosure Act should not apply to ACTEW or any other entity simply because they are acting as an agent of NEMMCO or NECA. I think the public interest is better served by ACTEW continuing to be subject to those two bits of legislation.

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