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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 887 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (10.08): I have to indicate that I am concerned about amendment 5. This effectively says that at the end of a joint venture we would automatically transfer back assets which are referred to in clause 11 as having been vested originally in the joint venture. That sounds fine, except that if the joint venture lasted for 20 years and you were trying to identify what assets there at the beginning now have to be transferred back at the end you would have a definitional difficulty about what was the same asset.

For example, you have some pipelines laid through one part of the city of Canberra. In the 20 years that they have been part of the joint venture, the pipes have been dug up a couple of times and replaced. They have been widened to accommodate more cabling, the route has been changed to accommodate a new building and other things have occurred. How do you know at the end of the 20 years whether that pipeline is the same pipeline that was vested 20 years before pursuant to clause 11?

You could argue that basically it is the same pipeline; that it should be therefore revested in the corporation. You could equally argue that if things had been added to it or it had been changed it is not the same pipeline. It is the old argument about the man who had the same hammer in his family for 20 years. The hammer head was replaced three times and the hammer handle was replaced twice. It is and it is not the same hammer.

Mr Speaker, I think it is important not to create an impossible situation. The clear intention here is that the electricity infrastructure be returned to ACTEW at the end of the day, but being specific about what particular items are referred to within that framework is too difficult a constraint to put on the joint venture, particularly if it runs for a very long period of time.

MR QUINLAN (10.10): What Mr Humphries has said, using network assets as an example, makes a mockery of all the claims made about unscrambling the egg. If it is all that hard, why do we have all these provisions in the Bill, unless it is just one big con? The logic just does not hang together. I commend the amendment to the house.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (10.11): Very briefly, Mr Speaker, it is about the overall infrastructure being returned. We propose that the overall infrastructure go back to ACTEW, but not necessarily each nut and bolt which was originally transferred on day one. It would be the same infrastructure in toto but not each minute component.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 14 to 22, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 23

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