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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3756 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

That is what this legislation allows us to do. It extends the benefits of competition right down to the end user. That will be done through a staged and managed opening up of the retail market to competition; hopefully, with a target for completion of that process of 1999, a couple of years ahead of Victoria. I think I would be proud of saying that.

I do not know that we ought to be too nostalgic about the past. The monopolies that we had to deal with in the past did not deliver too much to this Territory, except higher prices and poor service. Hopefully, under the new arrangements we will secure more benefits than that. The benefits that we can expect to look forward to at the grassroots level, at the customer level, include keener pricing, especially to those ACT business customers who paid far too much in the past. I think we can expect much better customer service because if these organisations do not provide customer service their customers will go elsewhere; they simply will not stay to be treated poorly.

I would have to say that there has been extensive consultation on the framework that we are putting into place. There was an issues paper. We did send it to all members of the Assembly; but I note, as has been the case in more recent days in terms of providing information to members of the Assembly, that certain members did not bother to react to it, which may explain why they are a bit lacking on information now - they did not even read the discussion paper that they got less than a year ago. We sent it to industry groups and we sent it to community groups and, by extending the time for input, we did get some very valuable input.

There is real pressure from large customers in the ACT to move forward quickly. They are not prepared to sit on their thumbs, like Mr Whitecross seems to think we should, and let everything happen of its own volition at some time in the future. They are seeking to have things happen rather more quickly than that. They seek that movement because they are being disadvantaged at the moment compared to their counterparts in Queanbeyan, let alone in Sydney and Melbourne. All of this is about the bottom line, the economic growth of Canberra.

It represents, I believe, a major advance in environmental protection. I know the Greens will be interested in that. Clause 26 of the Bill states, for the first time, that discrimination by a retailer against customers who use an alternative form of energy is unlawful. That is not the case at the present time. We are setting up a whole new structure. Licensed retailers also will have to develop strategies and report on environmental matters, just as in New South Wales. That, of course, is a system that the Greens, in particular, have praised in the past. I hope they will do the same thing here and tell us how well it is working or, presumably, how well it is not working.

I believe that this Bill delivers real consumer benefits, superior to what we could expect under the old regime. One of the most important benefits is that customers will have the option - they will be able to exercise their choice - as to where they buy their electrical energy. The monopoly system is being replaced. I think that is for the better and I think it is in the interests of everybody in the ACT. I welcome the indications of support for the Bill. In the future, we will be able to look back and see this as one of the better achievements of this Assembly that is now coming towards a close.

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