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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (28 October) . . Page.. 2383 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Compare those figures, Mr Speaker. Under public ownership, the average amount of time that any customer in Melbourne was off supply was 70 minutes per year. Under private ownership, the average time a customer was off supply was 112.5, and 170.2 minutes per customer, per year. For a third of the city of Melbourne the rate of power blackouts was double, in fact it was over double, it was about 11/2 times the rate provided by publicly owned State Electricity Commission of Victoria. Those are the facts, Mr Speaker.

They are indeed the facts which Mr Corbell put on the record in the debate. If those opposite want to say that it is about the impression created, the impression that was created by this is that for the years 1995 and 1996, as mentioned in Mr Corbell's letter to the Canberra Times, kindly supplied by Mr Humphries today, power outages were up. That is the impression and there is no denying it, Mr Speaker.

The figures that Mr Corbell quoted from the Loney document are spot on, because they are exactly what was in the Loney document. You say, Mr Humphries, that we are attempting to censure Mr Corbell for comments made during debate on the matter of public importance yesterday. No, not just the ones you want to pick out - all of them. He has not misled this place. If it comes to an impression, he has created the correct impression, because he has put figures in there that you have not been game to challenge. In fact, those figures confirm his argument that things were worse in the period he was referring to, and you cannot defeat that argument. Mr Speaker, I foreshadow an amendment - - -

Mr Moore: Compared to what? Compared to what?

MR BERRY: I know how you think, Mr Moore. I do not have to be told. It is pretty obvious; it is written all over your forehead. Mr Speaker, I foreshadow an amendment to the motion. If members of the Government want to go down this path and make a goose of themselves, good on them. They have not made out a case against Mr Corbell. Therefore, I foreshadow a proposal to amend the Government's motion so as to censure the Government for its repeated attempts to mislead the ACT community with the misuse of figures in respect of businesses that ACTEW has won and lost and in respect of the contestable business ACTEW has won and lost.

Mr Speaker, these matters were referred to by my colleague and leader, Mr Stanhope, when he drew attention to the fact that the Government has been twisting the message to the community. Mr Corbell has not been twisting the message to the community. He has been telling them, according to the figures that he was quoting in here, that things are worse as a result of privatisation. He has produced a complete set of figures, with everything in context, straight from the report that he was referring to.

MR SPEAKER: Are you formally moving your amendment, Mr Berry?

MR BERRY: I can move it.

MR SPEAKER: Members, that would be a sensible idea, I suggest, and then we can open up the debate and not have to be cramping people all the time.

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