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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (2 February) . . Page.. 51 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Government itself that brought this debate on today. The Assembly would not normally have met until two weeks from now, but the Government considered this to be so important that it had to be brought forward two weeks, so here we are discussing it. Whether we are fully informed and whether we have had time to digest the superannuation committee's report or whether we have not, the Government insists that we deal with it anyway. The Government cannot have its cake and eat it. It either wants to provide the information so that there can be an informed debate or it does not. I submit that the latter is the case.

The third issue that I have made a point about, Mr Speaker, is the situation of ACTEW's staff. It is quite interesting that just over a year ago ACTEW put out its annual statement of corporate intent, and there is not a single hint of any problem in that. Everything was rosy. ACTEW had a glorious future ahead of it. Less than a year later we are told that ACTEW is in tatters and if it is not sold the fabric of society as we know it is going to fall apart. I want some assurance from the Government as to the future of ACTEW staff. It is very interesting that, had the Government got the endorsement of this place today to sell ACTEW, some very specific clauses were going to go into the contract of sale that would have required the buyer to guarantee employment for 12 months, to pick up all of the associated liabilities that go with that and not implement involuntary redundancies in respect of any employee until a whole series of issues had been dealt with first. But the Chief Minister tells us that if it is not sold, if the status of ACTEW does not change at all, all hell is going to break loose; we are going to see enormous reductions in staff at ACTEW.

On the one hand, they can say to a prospective buyer, "You will under all circumstances guarantee to save the secure future of these people, but if we retain the ownership we will give no such undertaking. In fact, we will do exactly the opposite and say that we are going to get rid of a whole bunch of people". If there can be a contractual obligation on a potential buyer, I submit that the same contractual obligation should apply to the Government itself as a good employer, if you would like to call it that. Of course, the other issue is that there are existing EBAs. I do not believe the Government can unilaterally abrogate those EBAs. There is a certain negotiating process that they have to go through. (Extension of time granted)

I have dealt with the three issues that have been of concern to me over some time. I have made my views quite public. There has been no secret about my concerns about those things during the developing debate. One thing I think I am obligated to comment upon is the fact that the Chief Minister in the last few days tabled a letter. She used that to support her contention that ACTEW had to be sold because there were going to be terrible consequences if it was not. The letter happens to be a letter between the chief executive officer of ACTEW and the head of the ACT government service. It is not a letter to a politician.

The Chief Minister saw fit to throw this letter and, in the doing, to throw the chief executive officer of ACTEW and the head of her own department into a political debate about this issue. There are two issues about that. The first is that the Chief Minister seems to have lost sight of the separation of powers and the fact that throwing senior public servants into a political debate is not a good thing to do. Why she did that I cannot imagine. The other issue is that the Chief Minister has relied on this document as saying

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