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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 1039 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members of the Legislative Assembly who have recognised the importance of these reforms. Under the tight timeframe that we have, they have worked with the Government towards a satisfactory outcome. I see that Mr Kaine has left. I take note of his concerns and will discuss them with him later.

Mr Speaker, gas market reform is not only about opening the ACT market to competition. It is also about joining a national gas market which will see pipelines connecting the North West Shelf developments in Western Australia to basins in Central Australia which currently supply the ACT. It is about joining a truly national gas market which will see connecting pipelines between new reserves in the Timor Sea and Papua New Guinea and these basins. There are other gas reserves yet to be explored. It is about participating in an exciting stage of the development of a national gas market which will secure the long-term supply of gas for all ACT customers. By the end of this year, Mr Speaker, there will be a pipeline connecting Albury and Wagga Wagga thus linking the Moomba to Sydney pipeline system with Victoria's Bass Strait offshore gas fields. The Moomba to Sydney pipeline system transports gas to the ACT. A proposal for the eastern gas pipeline to connect eastern Victorian gas fields to Wollongong, passing near Canberra, is still under consideration.

Mr Speaker, the independent regulators in New South Wales and Victoria have already made some stringent rulings on rates of return made by pipeline owners. The amendment that I will move in a moment clearly does not seek to block out Mr Baxter. It simply complements the job that he does and perhaps makes it easier for him to perform his own roles that he must carry out. In the cross-border region the independent regulators for the ACT and New South Wales will work in concert. Therefore, it is important that their powers and functions be defined as those conferred by the gas access legislation. The Gas Pipelines Access Bill 1998 adopts the national third-party access code for natural gas pipeline systems. The powers and functions of the regulator, as prescribed in the access code, are broad-ranging and allow the local regulator to consider other relevant matters and take into account all facets of public benefit.

Nevertheless, to ensure that regulators act consistently in relation to cross-border pipelines, I now propose a Government amendment to the Gas Pipelines Access Bill 1998, an amendment which has been adopted by other jurisdictions on the east coast. This, in fact, will make Mr Baxter's job easier rather than harder. Mr Speaker, this amendment provides for the ACT Independent Pricing and Regulatory Commission to perform or execute a power or function conferred by the ACT access law or by the access legislation of another jurisdiction, without being subject to control or direction by a Minister. So it truly allows him to act as an independent regulator.

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