Page 3306 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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Certainly, this side of the house is not looking at flogging off the farm, as I have heard Mr Lamont say. What we are looking at is a system which will actually provide a better service, available to more Canberrans, at a cheaper price. Who could argue with that sort of approach? If competition were introduced, the savings could be significant. ACTION's multimillion dollar subsidy could be returned to the people of Canberra through reduced taxes and charges or improved community health services, child-care services, aged services, hospital beds - all those sorts of things that, obviously, this Government does not care about; otherwise, it would be looking at ways to achieve these sorts of savings. Those savings were very evident in our alternative budget statement. The Chief Minister must have the courage to stand up for what she was elected to do, which was to serve the people of Canberra, not to serve some sort of ideological commitment to a bus service - heaven help us!
The bus system is not the only public utility which is in desperate need of reform. We all know that. The same thing could be said of ACTEW. ACTEW do a remarkable job under enormous pressure; but they want to be corporatised. That is not our idea; it is theirs. They want to be able to get out there and compete, not just in the Australian marketplace but in the world marketplace. The Liberal Party has been incredibly impressed with what they have done, with the shackles that they operate under; but it is simply not good enough. If the Chief Minister were being true to the things that she agreed to at the COAG meetings, those are the things that would be happening in the ACT at the moment. We would also be seeing competition within departments. We would be seeing internal public sector competition. I do not think the Government even knows what it is.
Debate (on motion by Mr Berry) adjourned.
Sitting suspended from 12.06 to 2.30 pm
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Government Service - Overseas Travel Allowances
MRS CARNELL: Madam Speaker, my question without notice is to the Chief Minister. I refer the Chief Minister to the Auditor-General's report tabled yesterday which says, in relation to calculations of travel allowances for all overseas travel selected:
... in most of the calculations there were errors ...
Chief Minister, this means more than half. I ask the Chief Minister whether she concedes that the procedures for travel allowance claims are in a complete mess and are another example of poor management of this Government. Why is the processing of travel claims in such a mess? Why has the Chief Minister allowed a situation to develop where the Auditor-General brings down a report citing over half the cases he examined as error plagued?
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