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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1730 ..

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (11.52): Mr Speaker, I want to speak briefly to Ms Horodny's amendment, as amended by Mr Kaine. I feel I have to speak, although I addressed some of the issues raised in Ms Horodny's amendment when I spoke the first time, before people vote on Ms Horodny's amendment. I need to draw people's attention to a couple of things that have been said in the debate and what they really mean.

First of all, let us go to the lack of information about what constitutes this trial and my call earlier for the Government, if it wants to proceed with the trial, to first produce some sort of feasibility study so that we understand what they are proposing. I am not sure that even the Chief Minister understands what they are proposing. The Chief Minister paints a picture, and Mr Humphries in interjections paints a picture, of all these people standing by bus stops waiting for a bus. A Deane's bus drives past and they say, "Gee, I wish I could get on that Deane's bus". Mrs Carnell suggests that there is going to be an ACTION bus just around the corner and they are waiting there for the ACTION bus, but they could get onto the Deane's bus half an hour earlier.

Mr Gilmour, according to the paper, says that the trial would not provide any direct on-road competition because there is no ACTION bus going past. So, these passengers Mrs Carnell talks about who are standing forlornly at the bus stop watching the Deane's buses go by do not exist, because there is no bus service. Mrs Carnell is saying, "This is impractical; this is silly. All these people are standing by the bus stop waiting to catch the bus and Deane's drives past them and will not let them on the bus", but there are no passengers because there is no service. This is just a myth. I would hate to use a word like "deceitful" to describe the Chief Minister, but it is hard to escape it sometimes, Mr Speaker. All those passengers she talked about do not exist. She claims that there is demand for this service. She paints a picture of all these passengers waiting to get on these buses; but they do not exist, because there is no-one waiting at the bus stop.

How do they know that there is a single passenger waiting to catch the service? Where is their market research to explain whether there is a single passenger who wants to catch this service? The Greens and the Independents are happy enough to proceed on the basis of absolutely no information from the Government as to why they are proceeding with this, and this really brings me to the point: Why are they proceeding with this? Clearly, they have no evidence of demand for this service. We all know that the passengers standing forlornly by the bus stop are just a fiction - - -

Mr Moore: In the rain and snow, in the dark, when it is sleeting.

MR WHITECROSS: That is right; in the rain, snow and sleet, Mr Moore. They are all just a figment of Mrs Carnell's imagination. So, what is the real reason they want to introduce a private operator to start picking up and setting down in the ACT? It has always been part of Liberal Party policy to introduce competition into the Canberra market, to have private operators operating.

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