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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 9 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 2670 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The ALP is of the view that it would be quite derelict and reckless to propose the sale of ACTEW in a circumstance in which one did not understand the full economic implications of the sale of our largest asset. It seems to us reckless in the extreme to proceed with a sale without a full understanding of the global implications for the ACT economy. The Labor Party, in that regard, has proposed in this motion that the terms of reference deal with the question of the downstream impacts on the ACT economy of the sale or of utilising the sale of ACTEW as the basis for meeting the unfunded superannuation liability.

Another issue of major concern to everybody involved in this debate is the nature of the regulatory regime that would be established to regulate a privatised ACTEW. There are a number of aspects of the regulatory regime that, it seems to the Labor Party, a committee established to actually look at some of the overall implications of the sale and some of the issues involved in the superannuation liability would wish to look at, some of those regulatory issues going to consumer protection, fair and just price setting, adequate service standards and the arrangements for the development and adequate level of maintenance of system infrastructure.

As I have said, the proposed sale of ACTEW is easily one of the most significant issues, if not the most significant issue, to come before the Assembly. ACTEW has been fundamental to the establishment and the running of the ACT. It has a fundamental role in the provision of our electricity, water, sewerage and stormwater facilities. It is fundamental to the wellbeing of the ACT; not just the ACT economy, but to our health, to our environment, and to a whole range of other issues of day-to-day significance to every person that lives in the ACT. It is a significant generator of jobs and work. It is a significant generator of dividends and moneys for the ACT Government.

ACTEW is a bulwark. It is the major publicly-owned asset in the ACT and we, the 17 of us, are involved in a proposal that it be sold. We should not do that without investigating absolutely and fully every aspect of the wisdom or otherwise of that proposal. To contemplate selling an asset of this order without fully understanding all the implications is simply untenable. That we should not take every opportunity available to us to explore all the options and all the implications is just derelict, absolutely derelict, and each of us, as a member of this place involved in the making of this decision, would be derelict, would be seen to be derelict and would be held to have been derelict if we did not make that decision on the basis of all the information potentially available to us. It would be absolutely derelict for us to do that.

The mechanism is the establishment of a select committee of this place to take that objective advice, to take expert opinion on the superannuation liability and on the methods available to us to meet that other than just the simplistic proposal that we sell our major asset and devote its funds to a liability that we can otherwise meet, perhaps - and those of us on this side believe we can certainly meet it - using other stratagems. It is just nonsense that we should charge down the path of the sale of that asset with, it seems now, the only justification being a significant other liability.

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