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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4989 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

whose business is that after all? -

(d) providing incentives to the Corporation to improve its efficiency;

(e) efficient resource allocation -

I do not mind that -

(f) structuring the final determination so as to enable the Corporation sufficient flexibility to adjust to market fluctuations ...

In other words, let us please have a loose ruling so that we can move around and set the price as we like. Paragraph (g), which to me is one of the most insidious, states:

appropriate implementation strategies to manage any adverse impact on the community in reaching any of the above objectives.

It assumes that the objectives have been reached. What is wrong with that? On the surface, probably nothing. But it changes the emphasis from the pricing commissioner protecting the consumer from abuses of monopoly and puts the emphasis on what is in the best interests of the monopoly. That is what is wrong with it, Mr Speaker. It inherently biases and undermines the catalogue of issues that we wanted and put in the Act. It is crafted to create a preconceived outcome, and that is to look after ACTEW Corporation as priority one. That is not what we wanted when we set up the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Commission.

Mr Berry: Tuck your shirt in, Michael.

MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Berry, for the kind comment. I have taken the interjection and acted on it. My enthusiasm in throwing my arm around has loosened my shirt but not my brain. It seems to me that it is a case of ACTEW and the Minister trying to see what they can do to get the shirt off our backs. This Assembly has to assess whether or not this is a sensible idea. To me, it shifts the emphasis in such a way as to undermine what we are on about in this Assembly when we support an Independent Pricing and Regulatory Commission. I hope my colleague Mr Osborne will say a few words, because after all this pricing commission was his idea and is something that I think is particularly important. Anyway, a pricing commission like this must be established as part of the competition policy agreements that this Government is committed to, because we have a monopoly in place, but it is appropriate for us to check and double-check.

One of the most important powers that this parliament has adopted is the power to double-check subordinate legislation. In almost any other parliament in Australia - in fact, I think in all other parliaments in Australia - this matter would simply go through and there would be nothing that any member could do about it. In our Assembly,

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