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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 634 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

objectives have not been achieved as well as I would like, they are a significant imperative on ACTEW. However, there is no such imperative on AGL. Its imperative is to make a profit for its shareholders.

I am greatly concerned that the ESD and social responsibility objectives will be subsumed by this merger. I would love to see more detail on the plans of AGL. What is the current green power program? How is it structured? What is AGL doing in Victoria? What does it intend to do in South Australia? What are the green energy sources that it tends to promote, and so on? I understand from the information that I have been able to access that they are interested in biomass gas, landfill gas. (Extension of time granted) That is interesting and it is worthy of pursuing at this point as we are trying to capture methane, but it is not a totally renewable source of energy because we know that if we reach the goals of the current environment Minister we will not have much landfill from which to make methane. It will be interesting to see what is going to happen in the future in terms of having appropriate technology if this merger is completed.

Issues surrounding what happens with a fifty-fifty partnership are coming up in Telstra, with the demands that it be fully sold because of the internal conflicts it faces from being government controlled but having significant private shareholding. I can see the same pressure mounting on ACTEW in the future. We normally see gas and electricity competing with each other for market share. I did ask about that in one of the briefings and the answer was that gas is good for some things and electricity is good for other things. That is quite a cosy, cooperative answer for two business corporations dealing with different products. I found that a little interesting because normally you would think that the consumer would benefit from the competition that is happening between gas and electricity.

I am also concerned about the carrots AGL is offering in this joint venture and whether they have the real benefits that have been claimed for them. The gas-fired power station, in particular, may sound a good deal, but it really is the second-best option from an environmental perspective when compared with the promotion of green power sources, which produce negligible greenhouse gas omissions and are renewable. Also the electricity generation market is just as risky as electricity retailing, so the ACT could still be exposing itself to risk.

We have come to the conclusion that we should hang on to our water, sewerage and wires businesses and restructure the electricity retail only. We have to ask: Why do we want to move a public monopoly which deals with essential services, delivers an income and is working well out of public control? Ultimately, these essential services have huge implications for public health and for the environment and they should always be the responsibility of the government of the day. If something goes wrong, if the community of the ACT does not get clean water, has an unreliable electricity system, has a sewerage system which is breaking down, it will be the government of the day which will have to take responsibility.

Why put these services under greater market pressure? Market philosophy requires maximising profit and managing risk. If this risk management is incorrectly handled and there is a problem, the effects felt will be more than just economic. There will be environmental and health effects, and serious ones at that. Take, for example, the

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