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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 812 ..

MR RUGENDYKE: I support the motion and the Bill. I have had discussions with an ACTEW employee or two this morning. The plea from them was to give the organisation some certainty. The Assembly owes it to ACTEW and its employees to provide certainty right here and now today.

MR BERRY (4.10): The first thing I will deal with is what Mr Moore has had to say. He criticises everybody else's philosophy on certain things. I do not think Mr Moore really understands what philosophy is. He is the ultimate pragmatist - anything goes, as long as it is good for him. He went on at some length to describe his discussions with the Chief Minister. She had said to him she would sell ACTEW and he said, in return - if I can paraphrase it, "Well, as long as it's in the community's interest. You know, this is one of the things". But it was not one of things that were mentioned in his 40 or so requirements - this was a little secret one that Mr Moore did not let anybody in on until today.

Mr Moore looks into the past at what happened in Poland before the Second World War. But Mr Moore fails to take note of the future. In today's Canberra Times we can see the future in relation to Telstra. With the privatisation of Telstra we saw a headline saying that something like 16,000 positions were to go and 10,000 in the next couple of years. Listen to this, Mr Rugendyke. It is ironic that we see this headline. Have a look at the future, Mr Rugendyke - 16,000 jobs to go in privatised Telstra; 10,000 over two years.

Mr Zwitkowski was on television last night saying that this was a great social good. How can you describe 10,000 jobs going out of an organisation as a social good? I will tell you how you describe it. You are the chief executive officer and you do as your board suggests, otherwise you lose your job. The same applies here in the ACT.

You might have a great deal of faith in Mr Mackay, who is just doing his job. The Government wants to sell it. The board knows the Government wants to sell it and Mr Mackay knows that that is what he has to do. These people are professional and they do not have to receive instructions. They are not elected members and they do not necessarily have the interests of the ordinary taxpayer in mind when they make these statements.

AGL is a normal company in the scheme of things and they have been quite successful. But they have not been successful because they have been providing dividends for the people of the ACT; they have been successful because they provide dividends for their shareholders. Their shareholders are more important than anybody in the ACT, as you would expect. They want to get involved in a deal with the ACT because they think it is better for their shareholders - not necessarily better for the ACT.

There are a couple of other things I want to deal with in relation to what Mr Rugendyke said. The first thing is that we were not in his office kissing him on each cheek in relation to this matter and winning his support. In the paper he says, "I don't think they've really argued too hard". Usually we put the arguments in here, Mr Rugendyke. If you are not capable of listening to them in here and if we cannot sort it out over a cup of tea, I am afraid you are in the wrong job.

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