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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (27 October) . . Page.. 2299 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

somebody else in the future to have to face up to. They resort to their mantra: "We must not sell, we must not sell". Such mantras might be soothing, and they may even win applause in some circles, particularly when misinformation is being laid down as the path for that mantra out in the community, but they do not address the basic problems of this community.

The loss of value if ACTEW is retained in government ownership and the massive unfunded superannuation liability are separate issues, but they have a common solution - the sale of the electricity arm of ACTEW, the selling of a concession on the water arm of ACTEW and the putting of that money into a nest egg to address future superannuation liabilities of the Territory. Mr Speaker, the Opposition in this debate is pretending to some degree that the problems simply do not exist or, if they do exist, they are not nearly as bad as the Government is making them out to be. They say that they can simply fund the liability over 40 years, but they do not actually say where the money would come from to fund that liability.

Mr Speaker, the claims being made in respect of that are reminiscent of Mr Berry's ludicrous claims, during the recent election campaign, that the Government had squirreled away hundreds of millions of dollars which could simply be used to come out and fund Mr Berry's election promises. "Nuts" is how independent experts summed up Mr Berry's squirrel claim, and they were right; but we see today that Labor is once again trying a "nutty" solution to this problem.

Let us inject some facts into the debate. Over the next 40 years, the ACT Government will have to pay out close to $3 billion in superannuation payments just to members of the CSS and PSS schemes - just those two schemes. That is $3 billion, Mr Speaker, in today's dollars. So, when the Opposition blithely asserts that the solution to the superannuation problem is just to manage it over 40 years, that is what they will have to find - $3 billion. Where, Mr Speaker, will they find that money? They have no idea.

Ms Tucker, in earlier debates in this place, has said that we should build in the notion of intergenerational equity in the decisions that we make in this place. Indeed, Mr Speaker, that is a very sound principle. What could be more inequitable to future generations of this Territory than for us to incur a heavy liability and then to pass that on unfunded to future generations? What could be more inequitable than that? That is what we will be doing if we do not make the decision to deal with this issue today. If we simply propose to deal with this problem by stepping up taxes and charges or reducing services into the future to close that $70m or so annual gap between our liabilities and our revenues, then, Mr Speaker, we will be asking future generations to bear the burden of our lack of foresight, and that is not fair.

Let me quantify the kind of burden that this would impose on future generations. In the last few years, in our forward estimates, we have raised something like $600m from taxes, fees and charges. That is the amount we raise in a single year from those sources. That is, therefore, a very large amount of money. Another way of looking at it is that this year we will pay out $20m for superannuation benefits; but, as I said, in a few years' time that will rise to $120m. There is a $100m gap in the liability of the Territory in just a few years' time.

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