Page 574 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 10 February 2009
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Minister, had a key role to play. I notice that in the minister’s statement she talks about it, Rhodium, as being no longer viable to sell.
It is not viable because of mismanagement, and I will get to the mismanagement in a moment. But we all need to remember that this is the government that could not even run a car lease company. The two shareholders, the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister, could not direct the sound management of a car lease company.
The last paragraph on page one requests that we now approve the disposal of the main undertakings. Well, the problem is there that is no choice in this for the Assembly. Whether we want it to or not, it has to go, and it has to go because of the mismanagement of the Stanhope-Gallagher government.
I note that the minister speaks about some of the long leases. In the annual reports hearings the other day we heard from Rhodium. Most of these leases belong to Actew vehicles. There are several hundred leases that extend for several more years of Actew vehicles. So the winding-up process will take some time. The problem here is that the government not only mismanaged the start-up of Rhodium, the life of Rhodium; it is now mismanaging the death of Rhodium.
On page 3 of the statement, the minister says:
This resolution will allow the company to transfer the ACT government fleet leases contract to another provider. The government has a tender process well underway to appoint a new fleet provider.
This is discourteous at best and at worst it is probably a contempt of the Assembly because before you do this you have to come and get permission of the Assembly. But, no, the government has already put the tenders out there. They have already assumed and yet again taken for granted that the Assembly will do what they want. This pre-emptive taking the Assembly for granted is not how it should occur.
In the case that the Assembly does not give this permission tonight, the government would have to withdraw the tender, and this is something the government is getting a dreadful reputation for. Business tells me they are sick of tenders being put out to test the market and then withdrawn by this government. I think the minister should apologise to the Assembly for just assuming that this would go ahead.
I think we all know that it has to go ahead, but I think you should do this properly. Again, it is symptomatic of the way that Rhodium is run. They are now paying more attention to the winding-up of Rhodium, but it is a shame they did not pay as much attention to the actual running of Rhodium. Perhaps we might have got a better outcome for the people of the ACT.
Some of the things that came to light in the inquiry that we had last year are interesting. When presenting the report of the public accounts committee Dr Foskey said:
Our report is a fair and consensual one.
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