Page 781 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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The committee also recommended that these guidelines be made mandatory. The Government considers that the current status of the guidelines is appropriate in most circumstances. However, the Government agrees that approval to depart from the guidelines should be given at an appropriately senior level and has directed that, where a consultancy is proposed to be awarded for a project of sufficient magnitude or sensitivity, conformity with the guidelines will be mandatory. I table the following paper:
Public Accounts - Standing Committee - Report on Inquiry into the Priorities Review Board Review - Government response
Question resolved in the affirmative.
TRADE WASTE SERVICE - SALE
Ministerial Statement
Debate resumed from 19 February 1991, on motion by Mr Duby:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (8.46): Mr Speaker, in the Legislative Assembly on 19 February 1991, Mrs Grassby made a number of claims against the Government in relation to the sale of the ACT Government Trade Waste Service and subsequently issued a media release summarising those claims. The statement was typical of this ineffective, intellectually lazy Labor Opposition; it was full of innuendo, misrepresentation and deliberate tampering with the truth. It was a typical ideological tirade, of the sort to which Labor always resorts when they are short - - -
Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. "Tampering with the truth", I think, impugns Mrs Grassby, and I think that ought to be withdrawn.
MR KAINE: I withdraw that, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Chief Minister.
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, the comments and the press release, however, were a typical ideological tirade to which Labor always resorts when they are short on fact and logic. The nature of the statements made is such that they cannot be ignored. They simply must be refuted and the truth reiterated.
The Government did not maintain a deliberate policy of running down Trade Waste, as claimed by Mrs Grassby. To the contrary, considerable effort was made to improve the Trade Waste operation and maintain the market share. This, I might add, was in the face of price cutting by private sector competitors in an attempt to erode the service's
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