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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (20 April) . . Page.. 1022 ..
MR BERRY (continuing):
Certainly while I have any strength left in me, ACTEW will survive and prosper.
Those are statements which nobody from the Opposition benches could disagree with. Later in the article, he went on to say:
Our task becomes doubly challenging, I guess, in terms of countering the bids by competitors to move into our market.
It is clear that he understands those issues. It also appears in the articles that he had, to quote from the article, "absolutely no doubt" ACTEW could survive in its own right. They are all pretty clear statements to me. But here is the one to cap it off:
The people of the ACT have a direct interest in making sure that occurs.
That is an insightful, profound statement in respect of ACTEW and one which I would agree with quite happily. I have no doubts in my mind as to what Mr Mackay meant in his comments in relation to his then new future in ACTEW. I am buoyed further by the comments of the chairman of the board of ACTEW, Jim Service, as reported in the same article. The final paragraphs of the article read:
He, too, believed ACTEW could survive in its own right but said that, "The things that are going to happen in this new competitive world are unpredictable ...
"We are going to have some battles on our hands but we are going to be all right."
These are the people who, dare I say it, before the last election were singing the praises of ACTEW, but it seems that the Government's tune has changed somewhat because they did not want the people of the ACT to hear their tune before the last election. Mr Speaker, clearly Mr Mackay's position as reported in the paper is something which I tend to support and of which I have no particular criticism. For Mr Humphries to climb to his feet in this chamber to try to create the impression that I had somehow misquoted Mr Mackay's position is just typical.
MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (5.37): Mr Speaker, I would like to use the adjournment debate tonight to comment on, amongst other things, the good work being done at the moment by your predecessor as Speaker, Ms Roberta McRae, who is the president of the Canberra Region Medical Foundation. I must say that I feel very proud of the fact that I appointed Ms McRae to that position. Just today that foundation received $3,500 from a group of Telstra employees with an appropriate community spirit. In fact, the cheque was handed over today in a ceremony at the Canberra Hospital.
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