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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 1 Hansard (29 April) . . Page.. 171 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Your leader makes statements on behalf of your party. We assume that that states the position of the Labor Party. If it does not, of course, then we cannot believe what you are saying now, can we? So, Mr Speaker, I think we have to work on the assumption that there has been some shift in the Labor Party's position. Mr Corbell made reference to - - -

Mr Corbell: There is no shift whatsoever.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am not trying to make a big song and dance about this; I just want to know where the Labor Party is now standing on these issues. Mr Corbell said that there were clear guidelines - written guidelines - that the Labor Party operated under and which prescribed the way that they would approach such issues. I have not seen those and - - -

Mr Corbell: It is a public document.

MR HUMPHRIES: I would ask Mr Corbell to table it in this place.

Mr Corbell: It is our platform. You can purchase one from the party - - -

MR HUMPHRIES: In the interests of public dissemination of information on a matter as important to the public as this, I think it would be appropriate for Mr Corbell to table that information in this place. I call on him now to table those guidelines. I have not seen them. I have previously purchased copies of the Labor Party's manifesto. I would like to see them. I hope and trust that he will put the information on the table.

Mr Speaker, the fact remains that we do face a juncture in this debate which is critical to the future of the Territory, and we need to take our position at this point extremely carefully. The report which is on our desks, obviously, will not have been read by everybody at this stage; but I want to quote a couple of pieces from it, from the executive summary in particular. I quote:

In an era of competition and independent price regulation, Government owners of utilities face the full ownership and financing risks faced by private investors and lenders as well as the policy and regulatory risks traditionally carried by Governments. It is changes to the risk profile of Governments as owners of utilities which has prompted the ACT Government to commission a review of the risks and strategic issues associated with ... ACTEW ...

Mr Speaker, most significantly, we come back to the question of what the future management of this issue ought to be. I quote from page 23 of the report. This goes to the issues that both Mr Corbell and Mr Quinlan raised about how productive, how good, ACTEW and other Territory-owned bodies and government business enterprises had been for the Territory in terms of the economic benefit to the Government directly through dividend and to the taxpayers and others through things like employment. It says:

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