Page 3167 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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Mr Coe: Publish the contracts.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Coe—
MR BARR: Allegations made by Alistair Coe: that is all they are. They are hotly contested. In any event, all expenditure of Icon Water has to be independently assessed by the ICRC, as their capital and operational expenditure is regulated. Those facts are facts. They are not open to Alistair Coe’s alternative opinions, his alternative facts, his world of conspiracy theories. They are not open to that.
Mr Coe: So we are getting good value for money, are we? Twenty-seven million bucks is a bargain?
MR BARR: All of Icon Water’s expenditure is independently assessed by the ICRC. If you wish to pursue issues of concern in relation to that, which you are welcome to do, you may also wish to raise with the ICRC why they have approved all of these arrangements going back to the year 2000. And let’s not forget where all of this started. It was the Carnell Liberal government that put this relationship in place. That is where it started. So all the conspiracy theories, all the wild accusations, start with his own former colleagues.
Mr Coe: No, it started with the dodgy contract in 2012.
MR BARR: They all start with his own former colleagues.
Mr Coe: But you never overreach, do you, Andrew?
MR BARR: He can try to shout over the top of me, Madam Speaker—
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Coe, you were heard in peace.
MR BARR: He can continue his interjections but the fact remains that these arrangements were put in place by the Carnell Liberal government, full stop. That is a fact. All of these arrangements in relation to what was the ACT Electricity and Water Corporation and is now Icon Water and its relationships with the joint venture partner AGL, through ActewAGL, were formed in the late 90s and early 2000s as a result of a complex set of discussions and arrangements at that time, which predates everyone in this place.
Nevertheless, the fact remains, as I have repeated on about 12 occasions in this speech and will repeat again, all of Icon Water’s expenditure is independently assessed. But Mr Coe is suggesting that the ICRC have, on the scale that he is talking about, massively overlooked something. That is the allegation: massively. If you were to believe the figures that Mr Coe, the world-renowned expert in shared service arrangements for utility companies—
Mr Coe: I am an authority now?
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