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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 618 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

now on that level of risk, however great it may be, would be a dereliction of our duty to the people who have elected us. It would be a dereliction of our duty to ensure that we read the signs of danger of problems with the corporation which is the ACT's largest single tangible asset. We cannot afford to say that the status quo is going to be good enough, because it simply will not be. Whether you believe that only the energy retail section of ACTEW is seriously at risk or whether you believe other sections of ACTEW will also suffer if they are not included in this deal, it is clear that some action needs to be taken.

We have placed our proposal on the agenda. It is not the first proposal which the Government has put forward to deal with ACTEW's position in its marketplace. In fact, it is the third significant proposal the Government has put forward. Irrespective of the outcome of this debate today, it will be the last. We hear that there are other options which others may support in the context of this debate, but the detail of those is not clear and in any case what we understand to be the option preferred by the Opposition - that is, the sale only of the electricity retail business - is in our view very unlikely to deliver a measure of security to ACTEW that will see it safe in the coming period.

Let me illustrate that point by referring to the break-up of staffing of the ACTEW Corporation at the present time. As I said in question time today, ACTEW employed 901 people as of a couple of weeks ago. I forget the exact date, but it was very recently that that figure was provided to me. As at that date 319 employees were employed in the electricity distribution business of ACTEW, a fairly substantive part of the total ACTEW business. There were 305 employed in the water and sewerage business of ACTEW, 19 in TransACT, 51 in information technology, 51 in customer accounts and 109 in finance and resources, the support services for other operations of ACTEW. That leaves just 47 employees in the electricity retail business of ACTEW - 47 out of 901 employees.

We are expected to believe that a decision to sell the part of the business that employees those 47 people is going to make the jobs of the other 850 or so employees secure, safe from the changes in the Australian energy market which are coming down the pipeline very fast at this Territory and other places. We are expected to believe that shifting 47 employees out of public ownership is going to provide that level of security.

Mr Speaker, the Government's proposal for dealing with ACTEW's major assets does not involve any of those employees moving out of public ownership. It does not involve any of the businesses in which those employees are working being lost to the public asset register, if you like. All those employees - subject to their personal desire, of course - will remain employees of ACTEW Corporation. The businesses they work for will undoubtedly change significantly in the middle future, but those employees' businesses, at least in the case of businesses other than water and sewerage, will be devoted to the partnership between ACTEW and AGL on the basis that when and if the partnership ends those assets will be returned to the ACT, to full direct ownership and control of ACTEW Corporation and, in turn, to the ACT community. Mr Speaker, that is a significant difference between these two proposals.

Mr Speaker, I repeat the assurances that have been given to employees as part of this arrangement. When it boils down to it, this proposal, as much as anything else, is about the security of employees in the ACTEW Corporation. (Extension of time granted) The

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