Page 1081 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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The Legislative Assembly approved the sale of the territory’s shareholding in Rhodium when amendments to the Territory-owned Corporations Act 1990 were passed on 14 December 2006. These amendments allow the responsible minister to nominate a date to remove Rhodium from schedule 1 of the act. The government is unable to sell the shares beforehand as the act stipulates that only a government minister can hold a voting share. The government is also constrained from being able to sell Rhodium shares because of restrictions that are contained in Rhodium’s constitution.
I am seeking the support of the Assembly for my motion that will enable the voting shareholders of Rhodium Asset Solutions to issue a revised constitution when the company is to be sold. Clause 21 of the constitution states that the constitution may not be altered in any way that is inconsistent with the provisions of schedule 2 and schedule 3 of the Territory-owned Corporations Act unless and until a resolution approving the alteration or addition has been passed by the Assembly. Clause 21, therefore, has the effect of requiring the Legislative Assembly to agree to the voting shareholders modifying Rhodium’s constitution to allow the shares to be sold.
After the final terms of the sale have been agreed and at the date of completion, I will arrange for Rhodium to be removed from schedule 1 of the Territory-owned Corporations Act 1990 and for an amended constitution to be issued in a form that allows the shares to be sold and that is suitable for the new owners of the company. I commend to members of the Assembly the motion that this Assembly approves the voting shareholders of Rhodium resolving to amend the company’s constitution to allow the shares in Rhodium to be sold and to give effect to the sale, to which the Assembly agreed in the debate and the legislative amendments which were passed in December 2006.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (12.03): The opposition will be supporting the motion and look forward to the eventual sale of Rhodium. The motion is largely mechanical and it will allow for and facilitate the sale of Rhodium, a territory-owned corporation, to a private entity. It is hoped that with the sale of Rhodium, in what is and always should have been an area of private enterprise, we will close another chapter on this whole sorry affair.
The opposition support the sale of Rhodium and indeed, in a wider sense, support the notion that governments should not involve themselves in private enterprise and private business activities. In my inaugural speech in the Assembly on November 2004 I said:
… the path of government at all levels throughout Australia is littered with examples where noted failure has occurred when government has strayed into commercial endeavour and often failed dismally, leaving great expense to taxpayers or ratepayers ...
In my second speech in December of 2004 I said specifically about Rhodium:
… I need to place on record a personal reservation and, indeed, an opposition reservation about government enterprises of any sort which embark on ventures
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