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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (2 February) . . Page.. 37 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

Based on the advice of independent experts and the Government's consideration of these issues, it should be obvious to any fair-minded observer that the Government's proposed sale and concession of ACTEW and the enhanced regulatory framework for utilities will result in an improved outcome for the ACT community. The Government's proposed approach is arguably the only way to ensure the provision of efficient and effective services while dealing with other pressing financial issues.

The Government is not alone in this view, although those opposite would seem to think so. The Auditors-General of New South Wales, South Australia and, more recently, the ACT all recognise the imperatives which are driving governments to privatise their utilities. In addition, the need for changed ownership arrangements has been supported by the Electricity Supply Association, the Canberra Business Council, the ACT Region Chamber of Commerce, the Victorian Regulator-General, Access Economics, community and business groups, the ACTEW Corporation board, and numerous citizens, as shown in letters to the editor in the Canberra Times.

The Government's commitment during the election was to maintain and to protect the value of the asset, an asset that independent analysis shows is worth more than $1 billion at present. Just this morning I had a multinational company in my office making that extremely clear. Mr Speaker, those opposite laugh.

Mr Corbell: Tell us who was with them.

MS CARNELL: Who was with them? Ros Kelly, a well-known member of the Liberal Party!

Mr Speaker, one thing is certain: If the Government retains ownership of ACTEW it will surely lose value. Before the election, we made a commitment not to allow that to happen. ACTEW itself says that it cannot compete effectively in the newly created competitive electricity market.

Mr Speaker, where did the push for the sale of ACTEW originally come from? It was not from the Government, but from the board of the corporation. ACTEW cannot take the commercial risks it needs to take to operate in this market, nor can the Government and the ACT community afford to inject funds that would provide the capacity for ACTEW to diversify its operations interstate. We cannot afford to buy ACTEW's way out of its difficulties.

Furthermore, ACTEW has little capacity to expand its activities within the ACT due to very modest population growth forecasts and intense competition from interstate. Mr Speaker, this tends to throw some doubt on Mr Quinlan's wonderful views on how ACTEW is going to grow. You can only grow by providing front-end services if you have more clients, more customers. The fact is that we cannot have more customers if we do not have population growth or to the extent that may have existed during the 1970s and the 1980s. I think everybody accepts that that is not going to happen. So that simply is not a sustainable approach.

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