Page 486 - Week 02 - Thursday, 3 March 1994
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down from $57m when Mr Kaine was Treasurer to less than $45m this year, and we are shooting for $40m next financial year. As a result of these settlements in the last two weeks with the workshops and the drivers, agreements for substantial processes of change, we will achieve that $40m in the next financial year. When you were purporting to run this Territory it was $57m.
Madam Speaker, the level of efficiency of ACTION, according to this report, is now at about 3 per cent above where we should be in terms of levels of subsidy. The New South Wales Liberal Government is coming in at 17 per cent above what should be the average level of efficiency. We are only 3 per cent overservicing, whereas your New South Wales Liberal mates are 17 per cent. Victoria, of course, is operating under a whopping 50 per cent subsidy. Madam Speaker, the track record of the Liberals here was woeful. You achieved in the ACT, when you ran the Territory for 12 months, the highest ever operating deficit for ACTION - fully 20 per cent above where it should be. ACTION was an economic basket case, and I would say an industrial relations basket case, when you people were running the show. We have resolved a process of change which is already - - -
Mr Humphries: We had fewer strikes than you have been having. The buses ran when we were in government.
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, because Mr Duby signed an agreement with the very effective then union secretary to put an additional net $1m cost on ACT ratepayers. Madam Speaker, we have delivered real savings. We have delivered real benefits to the people of Canberra. While we had a few days of industrial action, which was regrettable and which the Government deplores, I contrast that with the sort of chaos that has been caused in other parts of Australia when governments have attempted to resolve the often intractable problems of getting efficiency into a public transport system. Madam Speaker, the achievement of this Labor Government in taking an efficiency basket case and getting it to a point where it is now only just off the average level of Australian subsidy for public transport, and where we are shooting at and will achieve those average operative levels, is a significant achievement. While we can manage, you lot can only whinge.
Street Theatre
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is directed to the Minister for the Arts. I refer the Minister to delay in the completion of the Street Theatre in Childers Street. I take it that the Minister is aware that on top of the delay in the completion of the building at Childers Street, due to the collapse of Dimitry Pedashenko Pty Ltd, there are also a number of significant structural problems emerging in the ANCA Studios at Dickson, also built by Dimitry Pedashenko Pty Ltd. What quality control measures did the Government put in place during the early construction phase of the building at Childers Street? Were they the same or better than the quality control measures used for the ANCA Studios at Dickson? Can the Minister assure those who will operate in those buildings and who will be responsible for repairs and maintenance of those buildings that they will not have to bear the cost of rectifying these building defects, caused apparently by a government's cost cutting during construction phases of both of those buildings?
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