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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 2 Hansard (19 May) . . Page.. 332 ..

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I ask - - -

MR SPEAKER: Just a moment, Mr Berry. There is nothing in standing orders which states that a question has to be answered in the way the questioner wishes it to be answered. We have been through this time and again in this place.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I ask you to clear the decks by directing the Chief Minister to be concise and confine her answer to the subject matter of the question in accordance with the standing orders.

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, on that same point of order - - -

Mr Berry: I ask you to direct her, Mr Speaker. I have raised a point of order.

Mr Humphries: I have a submission to make on the same point of order. The Chief Minister has completed the answer. It is not possible for a member to require the answer to be given again in some different fashion because he does not like the answer.

MR SPEAKER: The only thing that I can do is to examine the Hansard. I am in no position to make a judgment on these things at this point.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, with the deepest respect, you are in a position - - -

MR SPEAKER: I will have to examine the Hansard, Mr Berry.

Mr Berry: You are in a position to order that people comply with the standing orders.

MR SPEAKER: I will examine the Hansard.

MS TUCKER: My question is directed to the Minister for Urban Services, Mr Smyth, as a shareholder of ACTEW. As the Minister is no doubt aware, ACTEW established a Greenchoice scheme in October 1997. Rather than joining a scheme that was established by the New South Wales Sustainable Energy Development Authority, ACTEW chose to establish its own scheme - Greenchoice. Greenchoice has been shown to be flawed for a number of reasons: There is no independent accreditation, the scheme is available only to domestic customers and, most critically, the money is not going directly into the purchase of green power, but rather is going into an R and D fund with no detail of how the money will be spent. In fact, at one stage my office was informed the money would be used for the construction of the gas-fired power station which is not a renewable energy source. It is not surprising that only very few customers have joined this scheme. At the same time as ACTEW's scheme is floundering, the Sustainable Energy Development Authority's green power scheme has recently

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