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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 635 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
Longford incident. Clean water, sewerage systems that work, and a reliable, safe and secure electricity supply are what we are talking about. Experience in other countries has shown that private operators have neglected the infrastructure and that it is virtually impossible to monitor exactly what the situation is. The Utilities Bill is important, but we will not have the final form of the regulatory environment settled before we are asked to vote today. The community has the choice of saying that it cares about essential services enough not to put them in the hands of the for-profit sector. We are cynical indeed about the promises of best practice in the long run.
I must say at this point that it may well be the case that this will be a good arrangement - we do not have enough information to know because we do not have the Utilities Bill in its final form and we do not have the detail of this arrangement - but if it is, we will have to have the long term in mind when we make decisions on it in this Assembly. I cannot believe that people in this place do not understand the ongoing pressures that will be put on this organisation. We are talking about moving it a step away from public control. As soon as we do that there will be ongoing pressures into the future. We are doing that today; we are putting at risk these essential services. I hear members say, "It looks okay to me. They seem like good people". They have not seen the regulatory environment and cannot predict what will happen in the future. They cannot guarantee that we will not see this organisation become a different organisation. It may have nothing to do with AGL. We all respect AGL; it is good Australian company. Yes, I like natural gas; I have a natural gas car. That is not the point. The point is that what we are doing today is moving from public control the essential services of our community.
We need to realise that this proposal will have long-term impacts on the ACT and we have been given scant information on it.(Further extension of time granted) We have been subjected to intimidatory tactics by the Government, which is throwing its hands in the air and saying, "Everyone is being negative. No-one likes what we do". Today, the Government has before it something that we like. If it would like to separate the retail sector, we will look at a different arrangement under the deregulated market. You know what we would like, so you have something to deal with that you have support for; although I would have to say, disappointingly, that it looks like you have support today from Mr Rugendyke and Mr Kaine, so it will be for the residents of Canberra in the future to look back and see who is responsible for what has happened.
At 5.00 pm the debate was interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MS TUCKER
: We are very concerned about how enthusiastic and committed such a corporation would be about reducing the need for its own product by pushing energy conservation, for example. We are concerned about the commitment to green power. We are concerned that the profit motive will compromise best practice. We are concerned about what will happen in the future even if the current arrangements seem satisfactory. There will be pressure to change, to be more commercial and to sell water that we do not have. We are concerned that the contracts will not be flexible enough to deal with new standards or developing technology. As I said, we have the choice today to say no to the threats and predictions of economic failure and to say, "We know what we value as
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