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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 837 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Again, we are getting the rhetoric from ACTEW that, without growth, ACTEW will wither on the vine and that their dreams of growth and prosperity will no longer be attainable. At a practical level, I think these concerns are overstated and, philosophically, I think this whole emphasis on growth is fundamentally flawed.

ACTEW, in its response, complains that the buyer of the electricity retail will not be an ACT company. What do they think AGL is? AGL is a national company with investments also in New Zealand. It is based in Sydney. It has no particular commitment to the ACT. It has what suits its business interests. How long will ACTEW and AGL necessarily be the people involved? How can we know that you will not see AGL trying to offload its share, for whatever reasons, to another company? What is the arrangement for that? We could easily end up with an international company from Hong Kong, as South Australia has. This is the nature of the market. We do not have a guarantee from AGL they are there for ever and a day. Of course not. Why would they give that guarantee? This is the deal that is being offered. As I said, as soon as you put this into the focus of a commercial enterprise or organisation, you know what happens in the market. It is absolutely clear. As I said, Telstra is a very good example of what is happening. We can read about in our newspapers today.

ACTEW say that in the future we may not need the current capacity in the electricity network because of the growth of rooftop solar power. It should be noted, however, that we will always need the electricity grid for the foreseeable future to ensure reliability in supply. PV systems being planned for urban areas are not stand-alone systems, as they involve battery storage, which has its own problems. These systems tend to be grid interactive systems, passing excess electricity from the PV system to the grid during sunny periods and drawing electricity from the grid when the PV system is not generating enough power - for example, at night. It should also be noted that this potential problem will be faced across the whole national grid and not just by ACTEW. As it is a regulated business, such issues can be addressed by the various state price-setting authorities in the setting of future charges for network use.

ACTEW also says that their water business may decline because of the growth of household sewage and water recycling systems. But surely the most efficient use of water is what ACTEW should be promoting because of the environmental benefits involved. I found Mr Humphries' answer to my question on this at question time very unsatisfactory. It was from a very confused perspective. Mr Humphries appeared to be saying, "Why would ACTEW want to promote or facilitate growth in this area? It would mean that people were not using their pipes". As members are aware, the Greens put ESD into the objectives of the legislation that covers ACTEW, and ACTEW has taken that on quite well, with a few notable exceptions, in the development of environmental technology.

The concept of ACTEW being an energy service - that is, a service that helps conserve energy and helps conserve water and sells conservation as a product - is the way of the future. To become not just an energy supplier but an energy service that facilitates environmental best practice and technology is what I always thought ACTEW was trying to do. I have heard them claim to do that and I think they have done it in many ways. Look at Cranos, for example.

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