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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3513 ..

MR OSBORNE (11.44): I do not intend to speak for very long on this Bill. I rise simply to make a couple of observations. Earlier this year when it was revealed that the Government was about to pull $100m out of ACTEW to prop up its budget, a number of concerns about this exercise were raised by members of the Assembly. Among the concerns was that ACTEW would have to borrow the money and that, in effect, the Government was borrowing through the back door by raiding the ACTEW piggy bank. At the time, I raised the point that this was a transparent way of shifting borrowings and said that I feared ACTEW would face higher interest rates than the Government.

During the May Estimates Committee hearings the then chief executive of ACTEW, Mike Sargent, said that the corporation would have to borrow a significant proportion of the $100m at about 8 per cent. However, at the same hearings, my concerns were dismissed by Mr Kaine. I am not disputing the accumulated wisdom of the venerable Trevor Kaine, nee Methuselah, but I ask you: Who knows more about ACTEW - Mr Kaine or the highly paid former chief executive? When Mr Kaine first encountered power, Moses was still floating on the Nile and electricity came in the form of lightning bolts. Thankfully, things have changed a bit since then. The Government also disputed the fact that if ACTEW did borrow the money it would be doing so at a higher interest rate. Well, well, well!

That brings me to today's Bill. The Bill allows a Territory-owned corporation to borrow money through the Office of Financial Management. That ensures the corporations will be able to borrow money at the same rate as the Government. I thought you said that this could already happen. I think, Mr Speaker, that I must have been hearing things and I will need to get my ears checked.

MR MOORE (11.46): Mr Speaker, in rising to support this Bill, which seeks to remove the prohibition on the Territory lending money to a Territory-owned corporation except where specifically appropriated, I would like to make a few comments. It is interesting that we constantly use the word "borrowing". I think it is a very important word because at our Estimates Committee hearings most recently we heard that the Government - which has denied that it did any borrowing in the last budget - has been proven to be incorrect. They did borrow. According to standard Australian accounting standards, they borrowed in their sale and lease-back systems. According to the Auditor-General of the ACT, the system which the Government described as not borrowing - they did not borrow a single dollar - must be described in his terms as borrowing. So, we have had borrowing in the ACT.

MR SPEAKER: Do not go too far into the Estimates Committee hearings, Mr Moore.

MR MOORE: No, certainly not, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: The report has not been introduced yet, as you would be aware.

MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am aware of that.

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