Page 1650 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Apparently that confidence has not been maintained since then. In February this year, the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission delivered a draft determination stating that Canberrans had been paying too much for water—and don’t we know it. Not only had they been paying too much but it was due to the fact that many aspects of decisions by ACTEW over recent years had been mismanaged.
We know in the ACT that people are widely concerned about how much they are paying in water bills because they experience the cost of living pressures that the Canberra Liberals are committed to addressing. Canberrans once again, through widespread public discourse, expressed their desire for accountability and transparency from the government.
However, less than a month later, it was revealed that the Chief Minister’s Directorate and Treasury had both been sitting on information that revealed the chief executive of ACTEW was being paid an annual salary of $855,000. This was over $230,000 more than what had been reported in the ACTEW annual report and therefore well above what Canberrans thought they were paying for the management of their water resources.
Once again I highlight that the amount of public discourse was reflective of the community’s desire for accountability. I take this opportunity to quote from one of the many letters to the editor, phone calls and emails to MLAs, opinion pieces and social media commentary on this issue. Ms Joan Gordon, who wrote to the Canberra Times, summed it up reasonably well on 25 March, when she referred to the ACT government. She said:
They apparently now think the managing director’s salary is a critical issue for the people. If so, why did they not familiarise themselves with it when the information was given to them? Don’t they read the annual reports, or at least get their advisers to stay on top of the bits considered to be critical?
Ms Gordon’s letter sums up much of the community comment on this issue. Why didn’t the ACT government hold the water authority to account, why was there no transparency on this issue of the salary and why, only after the media found out, was there any attention given to the issue?
With respect to the special general meeting that was eventually called after all the public interest, I quote from the Canberra Times on 15 April:
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher told 2CC radio on Monday morning that the purpose of the meeting was to allow the company’s two shareholders—the Chief Minister and the ACT Treasurer—to seek answers from the board.
The Chief Minister obviously believes that she is entitled to answers about ACTEW, but the people that she seeks to represent, the people of Canberra, appear not to be so entitled, according to this government.
That is the key here. The government say that they want to be open and accountable but they fail to actually do so. The ACTEW controversy was the perfect opportunity
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video