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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (27 October) . . Page.. 2307 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

and non-core promises and his never, never on the GST. History will not remember John Howard well, and it will not remember Kate Carnell and her Government well. Her "leases and blocks", "sites and contracts", "not on our agenda", are her signature and they will be her long-term epitaph.

MS TUCKER (4.58): I will speak very briefly to this matter of public importance because I am sure other members want to speak as well. I was interested in Mr Humphries' response. He only addressed the first part of this MPI, which is the Government's decision to privatise ACTEW Corporation. He spoke about their decision in terms of the unfunded liability we have related to superannuation.

The problem here is that we still have yet to hear the Government talk to the members of this Assembly or the community about all the concerns that are being raised. The studies that have been carried out for this issue have been totally inadequate in terms of the way they have addressed the issues which are of concern to the community. Those of us who are actually out and about in the community are hearing these concerns over and over again. The terms did not look, interestingly enough, at intragenerational equity issues nearly enough. They did not even look at them nearly enough in terms of the loss of revenue that can come from privatisation, let alone the issues related to the environment and society which are also, of course, always at the centre of the discussion - - -

Debate interrupted.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hird): Order! The member will resume her seat. It being 5.00 pm, I propose the question:

That the Assembly do now adjourn.

Mr Smyth: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.

Question resolved in the negative.

Debate resumed.

MS TUCKER: We have never seen terms of reference for either of these studies adequately address issues other than privatisation. They have both been skewed towards privatisation. Electricity-related concerns in the terms of reference have been given priority over water resource issues and direction. Basically, I believe the terms of reference studies have been at odds with the legislation-stated objectives for ACTEW related to the environment and social concerns.

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