Page 3436 - Week 09 - Thursday, 21 August 2008
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I have clearly pointed out that in this case we have a litany of failures by the Chief Minister as shareholder to assume his responsibility. The Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister failed. The report unanimously says that they failed, and they failed because there was uncertainty about what was needed. They failed because they did not use the influence that they had to ensure that the outcome was beneficial to the people of the ACT. They failed because they left the board rudderless—failing to answer questions, failing to give directions and failing to approve the business plan. The shareholders failed to agree; they did not know what they wanted. The litany of failures goes on.
The business plan languished from December to the following April, because the shareholders could not be bothered, did not have the knowledge, did not have the wherewithal or did not care, and they failed to approve the business plan. They failed to advise under section 17 of the Territory-owned Corporations Act of what they wanted. They failed to give that clear direction, leaving the board languishing in an area of uncertainty about what it was to do.
Paragraph 4.50 of the report makes it quite clear that the committee believes it appears that the shareholders failed to comply with the Territory-owned Corporations Act 1990. That is what it says:
… the shareholders have failed to comply with the Territory-owned Corporations Act 1990.
Mr Stanhope: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, the report does not say that.
MR SMYTH: I am reading from the report.
MR SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.
Mr Stanhope: Isn’t it? I beg your pardon. I will respond to it during debate.
MR SMYTH: Yes, you got kicked out for this yesterday. The report says:
It appears that the shareholders have failed to comply—
there it is—
with the Territory-owned Corporations Act.
Then they shredded the value; they lost the value of the corporation, because they could not even sell it. They could not run a car park at a hospital and they could not run a hire company. This is a litany of failure, and that is unanimously agreed to by all of the members of the committee.
MS MacDONALD (Brindabella) (11.58): After that diatribe from across the chamber I would like to pull this back by looking at the report as a whole. Before doing that let me say that Dr Foskey put on the record her thanks to the previous committee secretary, Andrea Cullen, and also Hamish Finlay, the current secretary. She made
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