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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4993 ..

MR WHITECROSS (6.02): Mr Speaker, I move:

That the words "(a) omitting Requirement No. 1(b) in relation to the conduct of the investigation specified under section 16(1) of that Act; and (b)" be omitted.

Mr Speaker, the amendment is to delete the reference to deleting the timetable from Mr Kaine's instrument but leaves in the omission of requirement No. 3, relating to the terms of reference.

Mr Moore: Which will omit those from the regulation?

MR WHITECROSS: I go first to what I am omitting from your motion. Mr Moore and others, including me, came up against a difficulty in reviewing this regulation. We appear not to be permitted to change the reference made under subsection 15(1), which covers the succeeding three years, although we can change the details of how the commission might pursue the terms of reference under subsection 16(1) of the Act. Even though we cannot stop the Minister from making a reference for three years, we can change the timetables. I suppose that Mr Moore, in deleting the reference to a timetable for the two outyears of the reference, was making a point about the outyears of that reference. I understand the point he is making and I understand and share his frustration in relation to the fact that we cannot review the decision to make a three-year reference. Given that we cannot review that decision, I believe that we ought to stick with the timetable which the Minister has specified in his regulation, and that is why I am moving this amendment.

However, I will be supporting Mr Moore's amendment to delete requirement No. 3. I believe that Mr Moore is correct to want to delete requirement No. 3. The Minister has tried to portray this in a fairly innocent light as just being about giving the commissioner some things to think about, but requirement No. 3 and the explanation given by officials lead me to the conclusion which I think Mr Moore came to, which is that requirement No. 3 is basically a direction to the commissioner as to how he should interpret the requirements of subsection 20(2) of the Act; that is, that in considering the requirements of subsection 20(2) of the Act, which we all agreed to, the interpretation should be slanted towards the interests of ACTEW Corporation and that our major concerns should be to ensure the profitability of ACTEW Corporation rather than the interests of consumers, whereas the requirements of subsection 20(2) of the principal Act provide a much more balanced view of how these things should be handled.

In large part, the requirements of requirement No. 3 overlap the requirements of subsection 20(2) of the principal Act. "Achieving full cost recovery of services" is not dissimilar to the commission taking account of "the cost of providing the regulated services". "Maintaining the viability of the Corporation and generating an appropriate return to the owner ... in proportion to the risks involved" is not terribly dissimilar to requirement (d) of subsection 20(2), which is "an appropriate rate of return on any investment in the regulated industry". "Providing incentives to the Corporation to improve its efficiency" is not greatly dissimilar to paragraph (c) of subsection 20(2), "the need for greater efficiency in the supply of regulated services to reduce costs to consumers and taxpayers". I could go on. The main difference is that requirement No. 3

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