Page 745 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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Industry Commission - Public Transport Inquiry
MRS GRASSBY: My question is to the Minister for Urban Services. Is the Minister aware of media reports this morning claiming that the Industry Commission is holding public hearings today into ACT public transport? It claimed that neither the Government nor ACTION had made submissions to this hearing.
MR CONNOLLY: I was fairly staggered to hear on the radio this morning the Industry Commission criticising the ACT Government for allegedly failing to cooperate in its inquiry into public transport. The Industry Commission is a body which has attracted considerable criticism in recent years. It has shown a fundamental lack of judgment in quitting Canberra for Melbourne, but I suppose that that is not the principal ground for criticising it. It has generally been criticised for being out of touch with the community and being a relic from the wild days of economic rationalism in the late 1980s. It is rather locked into that free market philosophy that the market is god. While it can be criticised for that philosophical bent, it usually had a reputation for reasonable housekeeping; but, alas, it has destroyed that reputation by its intemperate and ill-considered outburst this morning.
The fact of the matter, Madam Speaker, is that the ACT Government and ACTION have been cooperating with the Industry Commission for months in preparing a submission in relation to public transport. The Industry Commission agreed that the ACT Government's submission would be received after the date for published public hearings. It is a considerable body of work to put together. Already this year the ACT Government has put submissions to the Industry Commission on its reference on public housing and its reference on urban land development - significant amounts of work that this Government has been prepared to put in to service this Federal agency.
The fact that a commissioner of the Industry Commission would be so ill-advised and ill-tempered as to get on the radio this morning and bag the ACT Government for failing to put in a submission, when his own agency had agreed with ACT officials on a timeline for the presentation of the ACT submission, rather puts into question any conclusions that this body would seek to make. If they cannot get their housekeeping right one has significant doubts about their ability to do anything else right. I suspect that their conduct today will not assist their general credibility out in the community.
Overtime and Unemployment
MR WESTENDE: My question is directed to the Chief Minister. Will the Chief Minister consider reducing or, maybe even better, totally banning overtime throughout the ACT Government as a workable strategy for creating jobs for the unemployed? Would the Chief Minister agree that this would be a real sign to the unemployed that the Government is serious about reducing unemployment?
MS FOLLETT: The answer to both parts of Mr Westende's question is no, Madam Speaker, and I think it is one of the silliest ones that we have ever had to deal with in this place. The question of any government banning overtime for public sector employees, I think, is taking to extremes the Liberal view of the value of the public sector. It seems to me that the conditions of service, the
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