The ACT's monopoly water provider, Icon Water, has refused to detail how it will respond to a Legislative Assembly motion ordering it to release key commercial details of its controversial $27 million a year services contracts with ActewAGL.
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The provider has been under pressure to release the full details of its commercial arrangements with the territory's electricity provider since Opposition leader Alistair Coe raised his concern the contracts should be put out to open tender.
Under the contracts, ActewAGL provides Icon with a host of centralised services including IT support, human resources management, payroll, billing and economic advice, under an arrangement that has been in place for 12 years that is due to expire in 2023.
Icon Water, which is owned by the ACT government, has a 50 per cent stake in ActewAGL.
While Mr Coe last year tried to get the water and sewage services provider to release the two contracts governing the services in full last year, the provider suppressed large swathes of the contracts when they were provided to the Assembly.
Details believed suppressed in the earlier release of the redacted documents included sections on contract price and duration, services to be provided under the contract and a raft of other general requirements, which were redacted on the grounds the information commercial-in-confidence.
The government is not technically able to force the corporation to reveal the full commercial details, but the ACT Legislative Assembly has the power to order such, and last week it unanimously backed a government motion to do so, in a similar form to a Senate order for the production of documents.
While the motion demands Icon Water release the full commercial details, it also must allow for the corporation to seek a public interest immunity, if it believes it should not disclose any specific parts of the documents.
However, an Icon Water spokeswoman has refused to detail its intentions regarding the motion, or whether it will claim immunity, instead saying only it will make its intentions known through its formal response due early next month.
If the water provider seeks a public interest immunity claim, then it will need to provide the documents to the Assembly's Clerk, Tom Duncan, in a sealed envelope, who will then pass them on unopened to an "independent legal arbiter", likely a former judge or similar legal figure, who will ultimately decide if the claim passes muster.
The Icon Water spokeswoman said in a statement the corporation was taking the motion "very seriously to ensure we comply with the assembly process and maintain our commercial confidentiality obligations", but would not release any response ahead of the formal response to the Assembly.
Icon Water's former managing director John Knox told budget estimates hearings last year the firm chose to "seek synergies" by keeping the shared services agreement in place once ActewAGL lost the contract to manage Canberra's water and sewerage network in 2012.
"Many of these agreements were in-situ when the joint ventures were formed in 2000 so it's very difficult to disentangle some of these services ... the separation of those could be quite costly," he said.
Mr Knox has recently been appointed chief executive of ActewAGL, leaving Icon Water general manager of infrastructure services Ray Hezkial acting as managing director until a permanent replacement is sought next year.
The water provider's response is due to be sent to the Assembly by October 4 this year.
