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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 511 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

"We offer to reduce the bill that you are paying at the moment for your energy at home by 10 per cent if you come with X corporation."? Why would an ACT consumer not go with such an offer in exactly the same way that ACT consumers who have been confronted with such calls from people such as Optus have gone from Telstra to Optus and in a whole range of other areas people have moved away on the basis of competition? Let us assume for a moment that people will not move away from ACTEW, that they will stay with ACTEW because ACTEW, as the smallest - - -

Mr Stanhope: What is your estimate? What estimates of a changeover have you got?

MR HUMPHRIES: I would like you to let me finish my answer to your question, Mr Stanhope. If ACTEW, as the smallest energy utility in Australia, somehow managed to produce a competitive arrangement to keep its customers - and I point out, incidentally, that it has not kept those customers in the commercial field; it has lost a large number of those customers in the commercial field - - -

Mr Stanhope: A large number?

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes. Let us assume that in the domestic field it somehow managed to keep its customers. What do you imagine that might do to the price of the services being offered by ACTEW? What do you imagine that it would do to the price? Do you imagine that ACTEW would continue to sell at present prices with those other competitors breathing down its neck? Of course it would not. It would be forced to consider reducing its price and making other sorts of competitive arrangements to put itself one step ahead of competing energy suppliers. In that circumstance, one thing we could expect to see is a serious erosion of the dividend which ACTEW pays to the ACT community via the ACT Government.

If they have to compete by dropping their prices, who would lose out in that process? It would be the Government and the community in the form of the dividend. That is where the cost comes, Mr Speaker. So much have things changed in recent days in a range of other fields, and soon to be the case with respect to electricity, that soon people will be able to get on the Internet and purchase those sorts of services there. That is not here yet, but it is only a short time away. The ability to change your supplier in those circumstances will be equally easily obtained.

I would love to be able to take the safe, secure view that Mr Stanhope has taken and bury my head deeply into the sand and say that this problem will go away if only I keep my eyes closed for as long as I can. Mr Speaker, the evidence before this Assembly is otherwise - the evidence of the Fay Richwhite report, the evidence of the ABN AMRO report and the evidence of the decisions of other state governments, including Labor governments, to radically restructure their industries to allow for considerable adaptation to the changing marketplace. Remember the number of important mergers and other moves that have taken place in the New South Wales energy market. They are not being done for fun; they are not being done because Michael Egan and Bob Carr like to make new names with new corporations and put A with B because they like the new colour scheme of the corporate logo. They are doing it because they believe - - -

Mr Stanhope: Are they selling them?

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