Page 1956 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 25 June 2008
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What we are finding is a process that may need to be looked at for projects of this size. The process may be deficient. I am not saying that it is; I am saying that it needs to be looked at. The government, in one of its many manifestations, should have recognised the danger that was brewing in the faulty notification process and advised ActewAGL to lift its game. And let us remember that ActewAGL is not a separate legal entity. It is not a business in its own right. It is a creature of contract—a contract entered into by the 100 per cent government-owned Actew Corporation of which the Chief Minister is a 50 per cent shareholder. As such, I reject the Chief Minister’s proposition that his capacity as a shareholder to influence the management of ActewAGL is “extremely limited and indirect”.
Two of the directors of ActewAGL are directors of Actew who were appointed by the Chief Minister—and perhaps the other shareholder as well—and over whom the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister, representing the ACT people, have an ongoing responsibility for oversighting and satisfying themselves that they are fulfilling their corporate, fiduciary and contractual obligations as directors of our company, or their company, Actew. They are hardly extremely remotely and indirectly connected with the Chief Minister as their direct employer. If, as the Chief Minister suggested to me in his letter—he was replying to my letter about the shareholder’s responsibility—they are not giving the Chief Minister up-to-date and accurate information as to how the biggest project that they have ever embarked upon is going and how it is playing out in the community then those government appointed directors of Actew, who are on the ActewAGL board, are not fulfilling their statutory obligations and neither, I believe, is the Chief Minister.
This is not a reassuring start for the project facilitation unit in the Chief Minister’s Department. It did not advise on the importance of effective community participation. It did not advise on environmental and health concern risks. Even after the initial substandard health and environmental reports were made public, it did not evaluate the feasibility of the project itself. And if it was never a financially viable project, why wasn’t the Chief Minister made aware of this, or even the percentage probability of this fact, long before it was announced by ActewAGL?
Since then, we have heard the government and ActewAGL give at least three different explanations for why the project has been radically downsized: (1), they were responding to community concerns—a bit late, but good; (2), that the project was never economically viable—well, that was a bit late to be found out; and (3)—take your pick—that the environmental or health impacts were unacceptable.
I refer the government to the opinion piece in the Canberra Times by Karen Macpherson, published on 23 May this year. Dr Macpherson gives a very credible and apparently objective critique of the Ausplume model used in the initial study. I have to declare, as she did, that she is a resident of Fadden. But please do not hold that against her. It is telling that all the deficiencies of the Ausplume model result in lower emissions readings than would probably occur in reality. Added to this, it appears that no background gas level was taken into account in reaching the final emissions concentration estimations.
I understand that other arms of government were quick to realise these inadequacies but somehow their input was not valued above that of the Chief Minister’s
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