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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 599 ..

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Kaine?

MR KAINE: Yes, Mr Speaker. My estimate is that the loss on the cancellation was of the order of $0.5m, just based on the ticket sales. I am not clear on how the insurance policy taken out by the promoter in fact covers the ACT's costs. Can the Chief Minister be more explicit about whether the amount is approaching $0.5m? What is the mechanism by which the ACT Government is covered under an insurance policy taken out by the promoter?

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, the basis of BOPL's arrangements with the touring company was that they took out insurance for the concert in Canberra for both BOPL's and the touring company's costs, so it was part of the arrangement between BOPL and the touring company for them to pay for the insurance for the concert rather than for one side or the other. I am advised that the insurance that was taken out includes the costs for both the promoter and BOPL. I think the $0.5m cost you are talking about is the actual total cost of putting on the concert, Mr Kaine.

MR CORBELL: My question is to the Treasurer. The ACTEW/AGL joint venture proposal outlines administrative arrangements for the proposed venture. The document says that on commencement the joint venture would be serviced by approximately 900 ACT-based employees. How many of those employees will come from existing AGL operations and how many will be existing ACTEW employees?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, there are 900 employees of ACTEW at the present time - I think 901 was the figure at the last census that I saw - and I think the intention is to have the services of all those people available to the joint venture. Mr Mackay, on behalf on ACTEW, has made it clear that, if this arrangement is approved by the Assembly, there will be no more than 20 redundancies in the space of the next two years - that is, the redundancies from ACTEW will be contained to that number - and some 100 permanent direct and indirect jobs will be created by the joint venture, as well as 100 temporary jobs during the construction phase of the various processes, including the gas-fired power station.

The guarantee there is that no ACTEW employee need be deprived of their present entitlements as an ACTEW employee. Any ACTEW employees that are devoted to the joint venture's work or the partnership's work will remain employees of ACTEW. Therefore, the capacity to have a relatively stable work force within ACTEW, on ACTEW's books, will be retained. How many of its own employees AGL wants to put into that arrangement, I do not know. That is a matter for AGL. We have not sought any guarantees about what AGL would do with its work force, nor should we, as that is up to AGL, but it is most important that there be a clear indication of what the impact will be on ACTEW's work force. I think that the ACTEW board has made that issue extremely clear.

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