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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 510 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

The extended time allotted to Assembly business having expired, the debate was interrupted in accordance with standing order 77 and the resumption of the debate was made an order of the day for the next sitting.

MR STANHOPE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer say on what evidence the Government bases its argument that looming contestability in the domestic electricity market will make it impossible for ACTEW to survive in its present form? Is the Treasurer aware of overseas experience that suggests, in fact, that minimal customer migration occurs when domestic markets are open to competition? Is he aware, for instance, of reports that when the Californian market was open to competition only about one per cent of customers changed supplier?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, that was a very strange question, I have to say, given the very ample evidence which has been placed before this place about the problems that will be experienced by ACTEW and, indeed, other providers of monopoly energy services in this country when competition comes along. Mr Speaker, there were produced in this place over a year ago detailed reports by Fay Richwhite and Associates and by ABN AMRO which very clearly put on the table a range of issues which ACTEW would need to address. If Mr Stanhope has not read those reports, I think that he needs to go back and do some homework before he comes into this place and tells us that there is a problem.

Mr Stanhope: So that is the evidence you are relying on?

MR HUMPHRIES: No, it is not the only evidence we are relying upon. Mr Stanhope has made reference to the experience of other places with the deregulation of energy. The fact is that almost every sector of the economy, whether in this country or elsewhere, which has experienced an opening up of competition has seen a significant movement in the structure of the industry and the viability of the players concerned.

To give an example in a related field, Mr Speaker, if you had said a few years ago before the telecommunications market was deregulated that Telstra would keep all of its customers, that they would all be loyal to Telstra, that very little movement - one per cent of customers - outside the Telstra family could be expected, you might have been believed. If you said it today you would be laughed out of court as a fool. Mr Speaker, you have only to see the number of new players in the marketplace to realise that the industry in that sector has been affected enormously.

Mr Speaker, it is axiomatic that there will be a round of competition for ACT energy consumers when the energy market in the ACT is deregulated. For what possible reason does Mr Stanhope imagine that people would stay with ACTEW Corporation for the purchase of their electricity, for example, if another company sent them a letter saying,

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