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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 529 ..

MR HIRD: Yes, Mr Speaker. It saddens me to ask this supplementary question. In the matter of ENERGEX, has Mr Quinlan simply got it wrong, Mr Treasurer?

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, clearly he has, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: I am sorry, the supplementary question is asking for an opinion and is out of order.

MR HARGREAVES: My question is to the Treasurer. Yesterday, in answer to a question from Mr Rugendyke, the Treasurer confirmed that ACTEW was bringing more than its power retail and distribution businesses and the operation of sewerage and water services to the merger table with AGL. The Treasurer revealed that ACTEW would also put businesses such as ACTEW China and TransAct into the deal. In January the ACTEW board announced that it had found a financial backer for TransAct, an American-backed Hong Kong company, Telecommunications Venture Group, which is to provide about 25 per cent of the $150m needed to get the enterprise off the ground. Technology supplier Marconi is also reported to have committed support to TransAct. My question is: What involvement have Telecommunications Venture Group and Marconi had in negotiations over the proposed ACTEW/AGL merger? What is the attitude of the companies to a suggestion that the enterprise which they have agreed to finance and support may be merged with a gas company?

MR HUMPHRIES: First of all, I do not think that I said yesterday that ACTEW China, TransAct and Cranos definitely would be part of the joint venture. I said that they were being considered for that by the partners and it would make very good sense for them to be considered as part of that arrangement. I still take that view. But I did not say that it was certainly going to happen. Secondly, the backers for the TransAct project to which Mr Hargreaves has referred are certainly parties that are dealing with ACTEW at the moment, but they have not reached a signed deal at this stage. They are still negotiating those matters and they are still open to examining the situation as it emerges in the next little while as the basis for doing any such deal with ACTEW.

Thirdly, Mr Speaker, I am quite certain that all of those players are fully aware of the proposed joint partnership between ACTEW and AGL and will no doubt, if they proceed, construct an arrangement which suitably fits within that framework. There is no reason, for example, why Marconi and other companies should not be involved in financing TransAct, notwithstanding the fact that it is part of a joint commercial venture between AGL and ACTEW. Such arrangements obviously can be entered into by a commercial venture of that kind, not necessarily on the basis of buying any equity in the partnership, but simply on the basis of financing some aspect of the particular operation which is being undertaken. In fact, in that sense there will probably be lots of other silent partners in this venture. They will be bodies like banks and lending institutions which will be out to provide finance for particular aspects of this deal. It is one thing to describe them as parties because of their involvement through providing finance; it is quite another to suggest that the involvement of those organisations somehow distorts the proposed joint venture between ACTEW and AGL. It clearly does not.

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