Page 2016 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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presented with here, on 48 hours notice, is a complete and radical restructuring of a range of government agencies and organisations and an absence of compelling argument as to why these changes cannot be given proper consideration.
I know that the Chief Minister said that he is sorry about that and sorry about the pressure it causes, but the troubling thing is that we should be making decisions in this Assembly based on the best available information. They should be considered decisions. These decisions will affect industry, they will affect lives and they will affect sporting groups, all sorts of interests, and we ought to be in a position where we can consult appropriately with the people who elect us here. We seem to be moving towards almost a dictatorship, where there is a lack of consultation, where there is a lack of regard for interest groups out there and where anyone who is critical is immediately categorised as a political opponent.
I do not have an issue with improvement in efficiency. I have spoken of it repeatedly since being elected to the Assembly. I have argued strongly against poorly managed operations within the territory, although I think that mostly people do a reasonable job in terms of the way they run things. I think that the government has not had its eye on the ball in a number of key areas. I do not think anyone on this side of the Assembly would take issue with improvements to the way things are run.
If the Chief Minister were to reflect on, or review, Hansard concerning some of the discussions in estimates or annual reports hearings with regard to tourism, he would certainly notice that I have been quite critical in terms of some areas of management. I have commented in a less than supportive view about the operation in Singapore. I have spoken about the failure to capitalise on the international backpacker markets which we ought to be getting. None of those things has met with the appropriate response.
If the Chief Minister had come to this Assembly and said that the government is not of the view that the job is being done as well as it should be and it is going to overhaul the way it operates, there would not be an argument, certainly from my perspective. But it seems to me that we are just throwing the baby out with the bathwater in this case. We are taking the position of saying, “We are going to make it more efficient, so we are going to chop this whole outfit and run it as a unit back within a department.” This approach is dated, particularly in terms of areas such as tourism. It is an approach that typified governments in earlier days when they really did not quite know what tourism was about. Governments have moved on and realised that it requires professional marketing operations and requires people with expertise on boards.
I looked at the quarterly report that was circulated earlier today. I do not know all the directors of Australian Capital Tourism, but I know that a number of them are very skilled people, representing a range of backgrounds and experiences, and obviously are able to lend their expertise to the marketing efforts of this jurisdiction. The tragedy in just taking this decision without adequate consultation, without due regard for the needs of the industry, is that it is being presented in this Assembly as a legislative move that is all about, in the words of the Chief Minister, taking business off the public teat.
Mr Speaker, I am really disappointed, as I said yesterday morning at the breakfast function, that the Chief Minister categorises the people in tourism as simply living off the fat of the land and having the public purse used to prop up their interests. The fact of
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