Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Three weeks ago I gave notice that I would present the Snowy Hydro Corporatisation Amendment Bill 2006, purely in desperation, to try to protect the assets of Australians due to the New South Wales, Victorian and Commonwealth governments forecasting the sale of their holdings of Snowy Hydro Ltd. I now congratulate the people of Australia on convincing the Prime Minister that the New South Wales and Victorian Labor governments’ decision to sell the Snowy Hydro Ltd was arrogant, ill-informed and flawed. It is for this reason that I am continuing with this private member’s bill, even though the Snowy Hydro Scheme sale has been withdrawn. I believe that there is a desperate need for this legislation to be in place, regardless of the fact that the sale will no longer proceed. There is no such provision in the act currently. I believe that this must be in legislation. It is clearly commonsense to put a safety net into legislation in the event that, if this issue is raised in the future and legislation is put through the houses of parliament, and the Australian people are not aware of it, there at least will be some protection with ownership capped at 10 per cent and a total of 35 per cent foreign ownership.

I repeat: I oppose the sale of Snowy Hydro Ltd. I oppose it now. I will oppose it forever into the future—no deal, now way, not now, not ever. I would like to go even further and have the Snowy Hydro Scheme listed on our national heritage register to ensure that no New South Wales and Victorian strong and majority shareholding governments can in future go forward and take the Snowy Hydro Ltd to a sale at any stage. I will continue to put my efforts into this additional action. However, I still think that the bill that I have presented today is a very sensible piece of legislation to put in place.

Whilst we are speaking of this issue, I will speak of the congratulations that I owe the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, on hearing the thoughts and concerns of the Australian people, decided to withdraw the Commonwealth’s 13 per cent ownership from the sale that it had agreed to with New South Wales and Victorian Labor government premiers. I commend the Prime Minister on his ability to read the people and to recognise that this was not in their interests, nor were the Australian people accepting of this sale.

It was interesting to see the leadership shown by the Prime Minister, which I believe was true leadership in the face of adversity and in the face of people then questioning the Prime Minister on backflipping. It was interesting to see how the Premier of the New South Wales Labor government, Premier Iemma, immediately withdrew the New South Wales government holding from the sale, then followed very closely thereafter by the Victorian government, Premier Bracks. This was entirely because the New South Wales Premier, who has never been to an election by the people as Premier, clearly was not prepared to go to an election in New South Wales on a platform of the sale of the Snowy Hydro Scheme without the Commonwealth to fall back on, to blame. It is clear that the leadership shown by the Prime Minister was not demonstrated by Premier Iemma nor Premier Bracks and that they were not prepared to do this up front and put it to the people. My concern is that again they will try this. (Time expired)

Bill read a first time.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 41, the second reading will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.