Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 525 ..

MR HIRD: I will repeat it. Is the Treasurer aware of claims that a request from a representative of Energy X - - -

Mr Stanhope: ENERGEX, Harold.

MR HIRD: ENERGEX to discuss the partial purchase of ACTEW had been refused by ACT government officials? An article in yesterday's Canberra Times quotes a representative of ENERGEX as saying that it would be better to have "two balls on the court". Treasurer, is ENERGEX still interested in a bid from ACTEW?

Mr Hargreaves: How many balls on the court have you got, Harold?

MR HIRD: It was a quote.

MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Mr Hird for the question. I think the representative said "two balls on the table", which is perhaps an even more bizarre comment to make. Yes, I did see the article in yesterday's Canberra Times and the claims by Mr Oberdorf, through his mouthpiece Mr Quinlan, which implied that ENERGEX is interested in a partial sale of ACTEW. I might reflect, first of all, on that that I am quite surprised to see Mr Quinlan so keen on a partial sale of ACTEW. I thought that is what he opposed very vigorously this time a year ago, but perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps it was all a bit of a front.

According to this article in the Canberra Times, ENERGEX apparently are interested in the partial purchase of ACTEW. Mr Oberdorf, in the article, said that he did not understand the politics of the matter. I think the politics of the matter are pretty obvious to anybody who is familiar with this industry at the moment, but that is another matter. I understand that there were some letters which were given to Mr Quinlan - certainly, there were some letters that he was hawking about the media, or a letter at least - with respect to, supposedly, the views of ENERGEX on this subject.

Mr Speaker, for the record, the Government initiated the expressions of interest process when the sale of ACTEW fell over a year or so ago and it led to 29 expressions of interest or proposals being put forward in this place. One of those interested parties was the Queensland-based company ENERGEX, or Energy X, according to some interpretations. Members can be assured that due consideration was given to the ENERGEX proposal during last year's EOI process. Without specifying the details of the ENERGEX proposal, I have to say that it did not rank as highly as the proposal by AGL, and I am told by quite a wide margin.

Mr Speaker, members should be aware that ENERGEX withdrew its EOI from the process in mid-1999. It withdrew its interest in the process in mid-1999. Mr Quinlan has publicly accused the Government of rejecting a proposal for a partial purchase of ACTEW by ENERGEX. That approach was made on 18 January 2000 by a company called Q Network Marketing International, not by ENERGEX itself. That was well and truly after the Government and ACTEW had agreed that the AGL proposal was most likely to benefit the Territory's interest and, therefore, to proceed to examine the AGL proposal. Mr Quinlan apparently believes that Q Network Marketing International is acting as the agent for ENERGEX. Am I right?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .