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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 751 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

The equalisation payment to be made by AGL to ACTEW if the deal proceeds must be repaid if the joint venture is to be dissolved. The Treasurer confirmed that in question time earlier. No government is going to advocate that we should pay back $100m or more to get out of the deal. It is clear that it is going to be even more difficult to undertake such as course of action if the money we receive from the equalisation payment is locked into superannuation provision, as has been flagged by the Government. Is this Government seriously suggesting that it is prepared to borrow $100m to get out of this deal? I doubt it.

We have seen the pressures on fifty-fifty privately owned companies. The experience only today of the contradiction of one of Australia's largest companies, Telstra, announcing a $2 billion profit and at the same time announcing over 10,000 redundancies highlights the real social costs of the proposed arrangements for ACTEW and AGL. Of even greater concern, as highlighted in the Telstra case, is that the different expectations of public and private shareholders place enormous pressures on governments to sell their remaining 50 per cent. There is little doubt on this side of the chamber that this is the eventual fate of ACTEW.

If that were to occur, it would be nothing less than a disgraceful betrayal of what the people of Canberra asked this Assembly to do last year - to keep ACTEW in community ownership. It is also a betrayal of the enormous public investment made over generations in our world-class electricity, water and sewerage network.

Throughout this debate Labor has identified that what must be addressed is the future of ACTEW's retail operation. Yet this proposal before the Assembly today goes way beyond that need. It instead allows AGL to have access to, and a share of, ACTEW's most profitable and secure assets - our electricity network and our water and sewer operations. There is no reason for this. There is no justification, except that it gives the private sector partner, AGL, access to our most profitable elements in ACTEW.

It is completely understandable that AGL would seek to achieve this. But this Assembly's responsibility is not to ensure greater profit for AGL. It is to protect the interests of the people of Canberra, the investment that the people of Canberra have made in ACTEW. The only way to do that is to confine any consideration of changes to ACTEW's operation or ownership to the area of the problem - its retail operations.

Unfortunately, this Government's philosophical objection to governments running organisations such as ACTEW has driven us down the path to where we are today, facing this resolution and the Bill to be debated later. We still have a chance to protect the interests of the people of Canberra, not the interests of AGL. (Extension of time granted) We still have the chance to protect those interests, but we have to have the strength to stand up to the threat and the blackmail that have been directed at this place. We have to have the conviction to say, "No, this is not the way".

What private company board of directors would be prepared to allow a joint venture to proceed and give away its right to final approval? Would such a board be upholding its fiduciary responsibilities if it took such a step? I doubt it. But that is what the Government is asking this Assembly to do today. It is asking us to say, "Yes, the deal

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