Page 2805 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 September 1994
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.55): I want to make a brief contribution to this debate, Mr Acting Speaker. The first thing I want to say is that the negotiations are not over; far from it.
Mr Kaine: You have not made much progress in four years, and I do not expect that you are going to make much now.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: The Chief Minister has the call.
MS FOLLETT: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker, for your protection. I have taken up with the Prime Minister, as I did at the COAG meeting in Darwin recently, the particular position of the ACT in relation to the electricity industry reform. I know that Mr Kaine tried also to take up this issue with the Commonwealth and, like my own earlier efforts, his fell on deaf ears.
The fact of the matter is, and it is not a secret, that the Commonwealth is pretending that it has some rights over the Snowy Mountains scheme, but in fact its rights exist only because it had responsibility for the ACT. It no longer has responsibility for the ACT. The equity which the Commonwealth claims in the Snowy Mountains scheme, by rights, is equity that belongs to this Territory. I have made that point over and over again. I have also sought, over and over again, to get the Territory to the negotiating table in relation to the Snowy scheme. We have had legal opinion that we have every right to be there; but, again, we have not succeeded. I have made no secret of that; it has been common knowledge. The issue that we face now is the uneven pace of reform across this industry. The Snowy Mountains corporatisation is proceeding quickly, but it is the States who are dragging the anchor. There is no doubt in my mind that the overall reform of the electricity industry is in the interests of this Territory.
We have the advantage of being only a consumer and therefore we are able to shop around amongst the providers of electricity for the best deal, but this opportunity is still in the future. At the moment the situation we have is that, with the Snowy Mountains scheme being corporatised, we are facing price increases. But the rest of the electricity grid is simply not progressing nearly as quickly. What I want to know, Mr Acting Speaker, is why the Liberals opposite have not sought to interfere in this matter in the way they did on the VITAB matter. Why have they not been in touch with their colleagues in New South Wales and Victoria and said to them, "Hey, you look like costing the ACT a lot of money."? Why have they not done that? Why have they not said to Mr Fahey in New South Wales, "The $600m that you are getting from the monopoly rents on electricity is at least in part attributable to ACT consumers. Why do you not get on with reforming your own electricity operation, get on with the formation of the national grid and save our Territory that money?". Why have not members opposite sought to interfere with their Liberal colleagues in the States? They do it on every other occasion when it suits them.
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