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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 638 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The real issue in this debate revolves around the risk to ACTEW from deregulation and the consequent competition. ACTEW's retail business, according to the Government's consultants, is worth 3 per cent of its overall operations and about 10 per cent of its electricity business. That is what ABN AMRO tell us. Yet the Government argues that the risk of an unfettered market is such that dramatic solutions, such as this joint venture, must be embraced. Not only that, but the Government and ACTEW overstate the case. As recently as 30 June last year, ACTEW boasted of its capacity to meet the challenge of increased competition. In his report in the corporation's annual report last year the chairman, Mr James Service, wrote:

That was said by Mr James Service, chairman of the board of ACTEW, in last year's annual report. That is what he said; that is the report that was tabled in this place for the information of members. We are now being asked to believe that, in fact, that is not the situation, that ACTEW is not coping with competition. That was said in last year's annual report. What are we to believe?

Members of this Assembly have an interest in knowing what has changed since June last year. Competition is not new in ACTEW's core business. Nationally, markets have been open to competition increasingly in recent years. In fact, the only sector left to throw open is the domestic or household sector, and there is a good reason to believe that competition will have its least impact on that sector of the retail market.

If ACTEW was coping well last June with the effects of competition on its retail markets, as advised to us by the chairman of the ACTEW board, what has changed in the last eight months to make the situation dramatically worse? The Government has given the Assembly no evidence of any dramatic change. Mr Mackay, the corporation's chief executive, has been beating up the issue, but he offers no evidence. In fact, in reply to questions of mine about the joint venture, Mr Mackay makes no mention at all of the corporation's success in winning business outside the ACT. (Extension of time granted) Instead, Mr Mackay makes the point that prices to contestable customers have decreased and the corporation had lost a competitive load in the ACT. There is no mention of the new customers Mr Service bragged about last June. Does Mr Mackay disown the statement of his chairman or does Mr Service now resile from his very positive annual report? If so, when did he resile, why, and to whom did he report his change of heart?

It is probably appropriate at this point that I refer to a matter raised in the debate by my colleague Mr Quinlan, further to a question he asked of the Treasurer last week. Mr Quinlan made the point that he had asked the Treasurer in question time last Thursday about what impacts on growth changed ownership would have on ACTEW's water, sewerage and electricity distribution businesses. So much has been made of the need to entertain this joint venture in order to allow the business to grow. Mr Quinlan asked the Treasurer, "What impacts on growth will changed ownership have on ACTEW's water, sewerage and electricity distribution businesses?", which are the basis,

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