Page 3162 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
provide approval for major purchases or divestments. Surely this investment would qualify as this. Is the situation that the shareholders have already been consulted but Mr Barr did not put that in his answer? If they have not been consulted, I would like to know why and when they will be consulted.
Another issue is that presumably the shareholder ministers have some knowledge of the waste feasibility study. If that is the case, should the community be concerned that, given the shareholders’ seeming approval of the waste to energy project that Icon Water is investing in, high-temperature incineration is the government’s preferred option for waste in the ACT?
Another concern I have here is that the lines between government and private enterprise seem to be blurred. By countenancing work on this project, they seem to be signalling that a commercial arm of the government will get in first on the commercial opportunity to do waste to energy projects with the waste of the ACT. It seems to me that the government is neither fish nor fowl. It is not a clear government undertaking. I make it clear that I do not have any problems with the ACT government dealing with waste. We currently have a government-run waste system, and I do not have any intrinsic problems with that. I am not arguing against that. What I am saying is that it appears to be a commercial undertaking on which the ACT government appears to be taking up the running. We need to be clear—what is it? Is it government or non-government?
I asked another interesting question on 16 August, hoping to get a bit more clarity about what was going on with this. I said Mr Barr had told the Assembly that shareholder ministers provide approval for Icon Water’s major purchases. I then asked:
When will you be approving or rejecting Icon Water becoming a 25 per cent owner of the waste to energy plant?
Mr Barr said there was a formal process that needs to be gone through. So I asked:
Assuming that there is a formal process, is that formal process going to include consulting the community on whether to approve or reject this?
Mr Barr answered:
Yes, there are elements of community consultation as part of the process.
My supplementary question to this is: is this community consultation the normal statutory consultation done for DAs or is there a new process that the shareholder ministers are taking on so that the community can advise the shareholder ministers on how to exercise their responsibilities as shareholders, to ensure that investments are made in the best interests of the Canberra community? There are significant questions about what Icon Water is doing with this potential investment. I call upon the ACT government to tell the ACT community and the Legislative Assembly what it is actually doing.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video