Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 428 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

exercises at some time in the future in restoring the ITOs to the Public Service; but what will never be able to be retrieved is the corporate knowledge, the history and the wisdom that are lost in this mad, ideologically driven round of privatisation.

Mr Moore probably believes that everything will be solved if a few local firms are guaranteed a part of the action; but any privatisation will disperse our accumulated knowledge, will destroy cooperative working relationships, and will remove an important training ground for the IT industry itself. I believe, Mr Speaker, that in this equation it is the ACT Public Service which is the big company that Mr Moore recognises must exist in this arena. No combination of small companies can provide the full range of services. As Mr Moore said on ABC radio this morning, this self-same process led to one big contract in South Australia despite government comments about support for small business. All the honeyed assurances came to nought in South Australia, just as they will here, because what we are seeing is the inevitable result of privatisation, the privatisation of jobs, which is just the same thing as privatisation of any government facility.

MR DE DOMENICO (Minister for Urban Services) (4.18): Mr Speaker, I thought we were, for once, going to have a sensible debate in this place. I thought Mr Moore's matter of public importance a quite sensible thing to raise. I heard Mrs Carnell allay some of Mr Moore's concerns about the process and talk about the fact that those in local industry are the ones who should benefit. Ms Tucker stood up and made some quite interesting comments on the whole issue. I must admit that when Ms Follett first stood up I thought she was across the issues, but then politics and ideology took over. Ms Follett stood up and said, "This is what the views of the CPSU are".

Mr Berry: That would be enough to turn you people into apes. You will be hanging from the trees - - -

MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Berry interjects. What Ms Follett did not realise, perhaps because she was out of date, is that the people whose submission she read from were meeting with the Government, and probably still are, at the same time that she was on her feet. I am informed that the meeting with the CPSU on this issue was at 2.30 pm today. It started at 2.30 pm, and my information is that the CPSU seemed happy with the offer. They were surprised, I suppose, by the fact that the Government put on the table that an internal bid was something that we ought to be looking at as well a bid from the people working now in this whole area.

The other thing that was discussed this afternoon was the redundancies on transfer if staff move to a private employer. Ms Follett seems to think that that is not on. Why should anybody in the Public Service deign to accept an offer of employment in the private sector, as if it is a mortal sin? Of course it is not. It happens all the time in all sorts of jurisdictions. Another thing that Ms Follett did not mention because she did not know - she was not up to date - is that among other things that were discussed this afternoon was an independent probity auditor to make sure that the process is clear and above board. They are the things that Ms Follett did not know.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .