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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 625 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

time in five years, making a genuine contribution to the superannuation fund out of operations. It has not happened yet. This is the only government we have had in Canberra that has not made any contribution. It has made none in five years.

I believe that this Assembly should do the right thing by Canberra and not give this Government an open cheque today, on Thursday or whenever this debate comes to a conclusion. Send them back to solve the real problem. The real problem lies in electricity retail. All the other doom and gloom cliches that attach to the future of the business of ACTEW are so much nonsense. The figures are in ACTEW's forward plans, and they are in the ABN AMRO report. If you believe either or both of those documents, the rest of ACTEW's future is secured. It will return $70m to the Territory in 2003, even if it is not in the retail business at all.

I foreshadow that I will move an amendment to change Mr Humphries' motion so that the Government does not get an open cheque today. Go back and negotiate and try to resurrect the sensible option, that which fixes the problem without selling public assets, but you do not have a blank cheque to sell off half the assets and put ACTEW in the position where it can be further asset-stripped. When the facilitation Bill comes forward, I will be moving some amendments to it to ensure against asset stripping and to ensure the future of the non-system assets of ACTEW - buildings, depots, the hardware that has gone with the business - which are also at risk. (Further extension of time granted)

I repeat that I believe the risk associated with retail does not infect the rest of the business. The claims that it does are claims designed to scaremonger, to the point that people feel that we had better grab this deal, another deal brought forward by government that requires us to sell assets to fix our problem. It is possible to fix the problem that ACTEW faces in the market without the sale of one public asset - or maybe the desks in the retail office, if that is what Mr Humphries had in mind.

MR KAINE (4.22): I must say that this debate, as often in this house, has started off on a strange tack. Perhaps it is due to the idiosyncrasies of this place or the exigencies of it, I am not sure which. But I am rather surprised that the Opposition refused to debate the Bill with Mr Humphries' motion because, in doing so, they have forced this place to deal with a motion which, if passed, is effective whether the Bill is passed or not. It will empower the Minister to transfer assets without the enabling legislation that should be leading this argument, rather than following it. I am not surprised that people have taken this course of action, but I think that it is a totally irrational way to go and I foreshadow that I, too, will be moving an amendment to Mr Humphries' motion to allow it to pass before we get to debate the Bill without detriment, and I will explain that when I move the amendment.

It astonishes me sometimes, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we lose sight of what the objective is here and the debate becomes more important than the outcome. We have been debating off and on, with varying degrees of intensity, the future of ACTEW for a long time. Although the Opposition is knocking the proposal that is now before us, if you analyse what has happened over the last year or so you will find that the number of people who have expressed an interest in going into some sort of arrangement with us in connection with ACTEW has been getting progressively smaller and smaller.

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