Page 2817 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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We take the view that the long-term capacity of TransACT is good.
That was a nice, broad answer. I then asked him:
Will we receive a return on our investment?
His response to that was:
My view is that eventually, yes. Whether I will live to see it at my age may be another question.
That rather flippant, and I thought rather discourteous, treatment of a very legitimate issue on behalf of the ACT taxpaying community epitomises a philosophy that I am uncomfortable with. This corporation feels that it needs to respond to the needs of the people of Canberra by sinking so much money into that. The Chief Minister is probably champing at the bit to say, “We did not start all that; I will never defend that investment,” but the fact of the matter is that I am troubled that we have got into those things. I would like to believe that the Actew Corporation is now far more prudent in its thinking. When I hear the sort of belief that “we will get the money back one day” I know that that is a dream. I am quite confident that it is like that venture in China. Money is down the drain and it will never be seen again.
Looking at the undertaking by Actew of capital projects, part of Actew’s rationale for increasing its prices in addition to addressing unforeseen costs is to adequately fund expansions to their capital infrastructure and upgrades to the territory’s water supply. The reality is that the water price and tax increases are, in my view, providing benefits that ought to be applied over a much longer period of time. It seems inappropriate to me that we are applying some of these costs over a shorter time frame. I made a submission in relation to this matter to the ICRC. I lodged a personal submission in my parliamentary capacity.
Mrs Dunne: Did they acknowledge it?
MR MULCAHY: I do not believe it was ever acknowledged. I made the point that I thought these sorts of capital projects ought to be funded by the community on a longer-term basis because of the useful life and that a period of 20 years would be much more reasonable and much more equitable.
In conclusion, I would urge the territory government to tread carefully in its provision of water to the territory. The convenient arrangement in place with Actew at the moment obviously ensures a steady stream of dividend income and an arbitrary control of water price and supply, notwithstanding the arguments that will no doubt be mounted about the independence of the pricing arrangements. For the sake of all Canberrans I would hope that either the government manages this corporation prudently or more is done to strengthen the objective and independent supervision capacities of the ICRC, which I think are going in the opposite direction, in relation to the pricing policies of Actew Corporation.
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