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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (2 February) . . Page.. 60 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

community wants". That is what the superannuation committee has done and that is what the Labor Party and its supporters have done in arguing for an alternative view. Those on the Government side who support the sale by saying that there is only one way are the ones who are letting down the Canberra community, because they have not responded to the concerns of the community and they have not understood that people want more than debates about our financial position and efficiencies in addressing the real problems that our city faces.

People want more than that. They want imagination and they want something that addresses their values as well as the financial bottom line. They want recognition of the less tangible aspects of this debate, but they are equally important - aspects like the common good, the public interest, fairness. They want those issues restored to the debate, and that is the challenge we face with this motion on ACTEW today. Those are the reasons why people are opposed to the sale of ACTEW and why we, as members, should be prepared to challenge, question and propose alternatives that meet the goals of people as well as the balance sheet.

Mr Deputy Speaker, in closing, I ask members to think forward and imagine what the citizens of Canberra will face if ACTEW is sold compared to ACTEW being kept as a valuable and efficient publicly owned asset. If ACTEW is sold, potentially what do we face? The Australia Institute has estimated that nearly 1,000 jobs will be gone in ACTEW and in the private sector businesses that supply ACTEW with goods and services. The loss of the headquarters of the company is almost inevitable, going interstate or even overseas. No matter what promises or conditions the Chief Minister talks about, she knows as well as we do that you cannot control a private company for more than maybe a year, no matter what conditions you put in the contracts. Do we seriously believe that a large international or national power supplier is going to locate here from Sydney or Melbourne once ACTEW is sold? It is an absurd proposition.

If ACTEW is sold, we will see a lowering of standards and reliability of supply in water and electricity. ACTEW currently has the highest standards in Australia for the supply of electricity and water. A sale would mean a reducing of those standards to the Australian average level, which, of course, is lower than our own. This will happen because the Government has argued that ACTEW must meet the level of efficiencies achieved by other utility operators and these can only be achieved by a subsequent reduction in maintenance and operations servicing.

Our water system is another fear that people must have if ACTEW is sold. If ACTEW is sold, we will have a water system where the dams and the treatment plants are owned by us, but not the pipes that the water and sewage travel in to get to and from our homes. How can we guarantee the safety of our supply when we cannot control the network they travel through to reach us? The irreplaceable loss of the extensive and unique technical and engineering knowledge about the operations of our electricity and sewerage systems will also occur if we sell. How will we know whether a privatised ACTEW is meeting standards of quality and supply when the data we use to measure that is lost from the public sphere? (Extension of time granted) Finally, how will we explain in the future why we sold ACTEW, why we face all of the problems I have just outlined and, at the same time, why we have forgone the opportunity for revenue from ACTEW which could have been used to address our city's problems?

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