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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3752 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

The other thing I should say in relation to the approach of the Government to legislating in these matters follows the comments I made in the context of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Commission Bill that we passed earlier today. In that Bill we had occasion to introduce a clause making provision for disallowance of orders issued by the Minister which the Minister had decided he should be able to make without any review by parliament. In that case it related to regulated industries. Once again, we find the same problem arising in this Bill. The Government in this Bill have accorded to themselves the power to legislate without the Assembly having the power to disallow that exercise of subordinate legislation. Once again, as in the case of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Commission, we are not talking about a trivial matter and we are not talking about a frivolous question; we are talking about the imposition of a competitive market for electricity down to the household level being able to be done by Mr Kaine without anybody else getting a say.

I think that is totally unacceptable. It is even more unacceptable when you consider the state of the national debate about the timing of the introduction of competition into the electricity market. If you listened to the Government, you would think it was all signed, sealed and delivered; but, of course, it is not. We are not locked into a commitment to introduce competition down to the retail level till 1 July 1999. If we were, you would have to ask the question: Why is not Queensland, why is not South Australia and why is not Victoria? In fact, Victoria's current arrangements do not provide for competition below 160 megawatt-hours per annum until 2001. Neither does Queensland. In fact, even South Australia does not allow competition down to 160 megawatt-hours until the year 2001.

When the Government says that there is a timetable, that we have to keep to the timetable, that the timetable is immutable and that hundreds of millions of dollars will go out the window if we do not comply with the timetable, the Government has to explain why this timetable does not apply to Victoria, why this timetable does not apply to Queensland, and why this timetable does not apply to South Australia, but it really does apply to us. For that reason, it is all the more important that the Assembly retain some control over the timing of the implementation of competitive electricity markets.

The other thing in this regard to which I should draw people's attention is the Government's own consultation. The open and consultative Liberal Government conducted a consultation on the introduction of competition into ACT electricity retailing. They issued a paper in December 1996 and asked for comments by 7 February 1997. Guess what everyone was doing over those six or seven weeks in December-January. They were all on Christmas holidays.

Mr Moore: I was working hard on legislation. I do not know about you, Mr Whitecross.

MR WHITECROSS: I am sure you were, Mr Moore, but everyone else was on Christmas holidays. What a coincidence! As usual, the open and consultative Government does its consultation over the Christmas holidays, hoping that nobody will notice that they are being consulted. This consultation document has some interesting things to say about small customers. These are 99 per cent of the customers of ACTEW, but they consume 60 per cent of the power. The document says about these customers:

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