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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4880 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

The success of introducing competition into vehicle inspection services can already be seen, I submit, by the number of premises and persons already approved and appointed for the purpose. In the first week of the new arrangements, eight premises were approved and began conducting inspections and tests of vehicles, as required under the Act. There are a number of prospective participants progressing towards approval and appointment. There is no reason why anyone should be excluded simply because they are a dealer.

Obviously, Mr Osborne has been impressed by the fact that precluding dealers from carrying out these inspections was unreasonable and unfair in the first place, and he is now prepared to come forward and amend the Motor Traffic Act again to allow these dealers to perform these inspections. The new arrangements for vehicle inspections provide vehicle owners with a choice of where they have their inspections conducted. Many people would like to have the business that services their vehicle perform those inspections. Allowing dealers to participate in these arrangements will simply widen the choices that the Government has provided to the motoring community, Madam Deputy Speaker.

This amendment from Mr Osborne rectifies what I believe was a major problem with the Act resulting from the amendments that were made to it in September. I am pleased that he has recognised the problem and is now attempting to fix that problem. As I said, the Government supports his amendments.

MR WHITECROSS (5.46): Mr Speaker, Mr Kaine obviously was not listening to Mr Osborne's speech when he introduced this Bill last week, because his characterisation of Mr Osborne's motivations for presenting this Bill does not represent the motivations which Mr Osborne indicated. Mr Kaine said that Mr Osborne obviously realises now that it was unreasonable and unfair to exclude motor dealers from being able to conduct inspections under the Motor Traffic Act and that he has now seen the light. In fact, what Mr Osborne said was that he has given up. He said that there was a conflict of interest and there was a problem; but he has talked to people and he is convinced that licensed motor dealers will find a way of working around the provisions of the Act; and, because they will find a way around the provisions of the Act, we should just give up and remove the provision from the Act, rather than put licensed motor dealers to the trouble of having to construct some artificial arrangement to avoid the provisions of the Act. Madam Deputy Speaker, that was the explanation that Mr Osborne gave when he introduced the legislation. Incidentally, I understand that Mr Moore takes a similar position. I think that at least it is more consistent with the position they took before, when they voted for the provision. At least they are acknowledging that there is still a potential conflict of interest here. They just consider that it is too difficult to resolve.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I will not disguise the disappointment of the Labor Party that, rather than simply giving up, the Independents have not sought to come up with a more workable solution in relation to this matter which might resolve the problem in some other way. But I understand how the numbers are going to fall on this, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Labor Party will be proposing amendments at the detail stage. Those amendments are to reinsert into the Act our proposals for regular vehicle testing.

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