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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (1 March) . . Page.. 435 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

When we got to the stage where four companies were shortlisted, which I think was about October last year, the Government was advised of that process and it approved that process. Eventually, in December of last year, the Government was advised that ACTEW was proposing to deal with AGL. Even that particular proposal from AGL had changed somewhat in the process of discussion and negotiation.

The process has been one of examining how best to get an optimal deal to position ACTEW better in the marketplace. The possibility of other parties coming forward and improving on their offers in the expression of interest process was always open to ACTEW to entertain as that process went through to presumably even the stage where four bidders were shortlisted and maybe even beyond that stage. But I do not think it is at all surprising nor should it be criticised that, once ACTEW had shortlisted AGL as the company which presented the best chance of getting a strategic partnership of the kind that would see its objectives met, it said, "That's it. We're not doing any further bilateral discussions with other particular players". The ACTEW board chose to focus on the AGL offer.

Mr Quinlan: The door is still open.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Quinlan has made reference to my comment that the door is open. The fact is that this Assembly has not yet approved the AGL offer. If the Assembly chooses not to approve the AGL offer, the Government would have to consider what to do about that. As I have said before, we are open to further consideration and further options. To be perfectly frank, I am not sure that I speak for everybody on this side of the chamber in saying that we are willing to look at alternatives to this particular proposal as I was when I made that statement on the floor of the Assembly.

We have put a number of proposals forward and, if this particular proposal were knocked off by the Assembly, I do not think history would say that the Liberal Government had not tried its damnedest to put ACTEW in a position where it was going to be able to meet the challenges of the future in a way which protected the Territory's investment in that asset. No-one could say that we have not tried our damnedest to find a way around that problem.

Mr Quinlan: You put conditions on it every time. You saddled it up every time.

MR HUMPHRIES: I will rephrase that. No reasonable person would say that we have not tried our damnedest to find a way around the problem. My view is that this is the best option available to us at the moment. I have not examined the details of what the particular company Mr Quinlan referred to yesterday might have presented to the ACT. Thinking about this logically, why would you blame ACTEW, which has now done a lot of work on the AGL proposal, if it was a little bit less than enthusiastic about a party which in the earlier bidding process had put forward a proposal which was much inferior to - - -

Mr Quinlan: Because they are dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets.

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