Page 3947 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 25 November 2014
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everything? For an organisation like EPIC not to have a master plan for eight years or more under this government is disgraceful. It reflects very, very poorly upon this government that they were not able to achieve that. It shows they are not interested in microeconomic reform. They could have used one of the facilities that they have control over through the act to ensure that something happened there. They could have used their budget power to make sure things went ahead—but no.
We understand now that the savings are about $35,000 a year. They have shaved a bit off the sides. Over the four years it might be $150,000. That is the sort of microeconomic reform this Treasurer brings to this place. I can hear the words now—he goes straight to the slur when he is in trouble—and we will all listen to what the Treasurer has to say when he gets up.
This is a lost opportunity. Certainly the last eight years show that this government is not interested in diversifying the economic base of the ACT. EPIC has a great deal of potential. I think we all agree on that. Mr Rattenbury thought it had been issued with a licence, but clearly, after the bill had been lost, the licence was cancelled. We have seen the board reduced in size. We have seen a lack of a master plan being put in place, and that says that this government are not serious about EPIC. They simply want it back in the department so that it is just another function of the department. The opposition believe that would be a bad thing. It is for that reason that we will be resisting the bill today.
It is interesting that order of the day No 3 is a debate on the Canberra Institute of Technology Amendment Bill, because it is a bill that proposes to put a board in place. On the one hand we are removing the EPIC board and saying that that is a good thing because it leads to greater efficiencies and integration and all those sorts of buzz words that the Treasurer likes to use. Then on the other hand we have the education minister saying, “No, we’ll get rid of the advisory board and establish a governing board replacing the existing CIT advisory council.” It must be difficult on that side to work out where they are today. “No boards; bring them back into the department” is a good thing at 11.05, but by about 11.30 having a board to replace an advisory council will be a good thing.
I ask members on the government benches: what is appropriate here? Of course, I can hear the line: “horses for courses; it’s appropriate in this case”. If dragging EPIC back into the department, into Territory Venues and Events, leads to efficiencies, on that sort of logic one would almost assume that dragging CIT back into the department of education would lead to the same sorts of efficiencies but on a much larger scale. To paraphrase the minister, if we want some genuine microeconomic reform and some genuine savings, perhaps looking at CIT might be the way to go. But we will prosecute that later; I am sure Mr Doszpot will have plenty to say about the inconsistent approach this government has.
This is simply about a minister having his way. He had a bright idea; he wants his bright idea to go ahead. There is only one bright idea, and it is the little bubble above the head of the Treasurer. This is his shining example of microeconomic reform. We on this side believe it will be to the detriment of EPIC. We have seen at least eight years of EPIC being ignored. We know that in the last five years, under this minister,
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