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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 879 ..

Mr Quinlan: Sell it, quick, quick.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Mr Quinlan! Mr Humphries has the call.

MR HUMPHRIES: We are seeing the value of the asset coming down in the sense of the value of the - - -

Mr Quinlan: Now we get half the two per cent.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Quinlan, you should know better. You are the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Mr Humphries has the call.

MR HUMPHRIES: Thank you, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. We see - - -

Mr Quinlan: I thought he was directing his remarks directly - - -

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are testing my patience and you may make history, Mr Quinlan.

MR HUMPHRIES: Because of this determination by IPARC, we will not see a growth in the return to the ACT community over the next five years from the electricity distribution assets. We already know that there will be a two per cent reduction in the return to the ACT community from the electricity distribution network. How do we know that? Because the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Commissioner has already said that that is the price path. There will be a two per cent reduction in returns from that asset.

We also know that, if we separate the retail electricity assets from ACTEW, we will get no significant reduction in overheads. What can we relieve ourselves of in order to reduce overheads? As Mr Quinlan has pointed out in the last couple of days, there are not many assets associated with that. So we will sell off the customer list in the contracts. We will still have our 47 employees, because it is most unlikely those employees who wish to be employed would be employed by the asset or the organisation which buys the retail arm. What will happen is that the overheads will go up, and the price path of what remains of ACTEW after you have taken out the retail arm will go down.

What will then happen is the dividend will be squeezed. The profitability to the people of the ACT will be squeezed because you cannot get the same return on your distribution assets, and your overheads will continue to rise. You are a smaller organisation, so your chances to spread risk into some other part of the organisation or to restructure or to expand your market base is diminished.

Mr Quinlan: Get out of it.

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