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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 686 ..
MR KAINE (continuing):
between them, or do you seek some other mechanism by which this new organisation will be obliged by government to meet the CSOs, even if only at the existing levels without any suggestion of variation at the moment?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I suppose the agreement could build in some level of dedicated support to that particular class of recipients of benefits, but at the moment there is nothing in ACTEW's contractual obligations to the Government to provide those sorts of benefits because the Government actually pays for it itself via the CSO payments. An interesting question arises here. If the Government were to decide, for argument's sake, that we should offer the same dollar concession to a person who, say, heats their house with electricity as a person who heats their house with gas and we channelled a CSO at the present time through ACTEW and through AGL, the person who had the gas benefit would actually get a higher level of support because AGL provides its own subsidies out of its own pocket at the moment for its customers who fall in that particular category.
I think we could build into the utilities legislation a minimum level of support, and members will have the option of doing that. I think Mr Kaine is a member of the committee that is considering that matter. No, he is not, sorry. Well, members who are considering the Utilities Bill could, if they wished, build in a level of guaranteed support to certain categories of the community through the Utilities Bill. It could, however, be dealt with on a year by year basis on the basis of a government decision to maintain or to increase or to vary levels of support. That is a budget decision at the moment, but it could be built into another mechanism such as the Utilities Bill.
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, my question, through you, is to the Treasurer. In an exchange during the ACTEW/AGL merger proposal debate yesterday the Treasurer made reference to assets of the retail business of ACTEW in a way that indicated he understood there was a body of physical assets with significant value. I quote that exchange:
Mr Humphries: Except retail assets, of course.
Mr QUINLAN: What retail assets might they be?
Mr Humphries: Retail assets.
MR QUINLAN: What are they?
Mr Humphries: Electricity retail assets.
Mr Stanhope: What is the asset you are going to sell?
Mr Humphries: You want to sell the business associated with the retailing of electricity, don't you?
MR QUINLAN: What are the assets?
Mr Humphries: Assets to do with the sale of electricity.
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