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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (17 April) . . Page.. 999 ..

MRS CARNELL: Our approach to corporatising and privatising - or to anything else, for that matter - has always been about bottom lines, about reaching the savings that we need to reach on behalf of the people of Canberra. Quite seriously, I do not mind how we do that, and that was the point we made to the TWU the whole way through the negotiations. They agreed to our requirements in terms of becoming more efficient - having a much more efficient bus service or public transport system in the ACT. As they agreed to our bottom line, I really did not mind how we got there. We stand by our agreement.

MR WHITECROSS: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. That did not sound like a categorical statement that the Government had abandoned corporatising ACTION. Chief Minister, can you confirm that your Government has let a consultancy to Ernst and Young to draw up proposals for corporatising ACTION bus services? Can you also tell us how much that consultancy cost and what purpose it will serve if you are not planning to corporatise ACTION?

MRS CARNELL: We stand by our agreement. I reached an agreement with the TWU with regard to the rest of this term of government. As long as they stand by the agreement as well, it is in place.

Ms Follett: What about the consultancy? Have you no answer?

MRS CARNELL: It was a very definite answer: We stand by the agreement.

MS HORODNY: My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. Minister, I would like to follow up the answer to my question yesterday about the absence of a contaminated sites register in the ACT. You may be aware that there is a large number of old landfill sites and farm dumps in the ACT, as it was the practice in the past to set up new landfills on the edge of new suburbs as they were developed. Some work was done a couple of years ago by the previous Government to identify their location because evidence of such sites started to appear in some unexpected places, such as on Black Mountain Peninsula and under some open space in Curtin. Given the absence of a contaminated sites register in the ACT, what process has been employed by the ACT Planning Authority, since the Territory Plan was gazetted, to ensure that no developments were approved on the sites of old landfills without an environmental assessment?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I do welcome the question. The process used was a very simple process; it was a process of commonsense. If a proposal to develop a site happens to coincide with the site of previous landfill or known contamination through, for example, the conduct of a sheep dip on that site - or anything else, for that matter -

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