Page 4969 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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Commonwealth legislation does require all Territory owned corporations and any subsidiaries to be 100 per cent owned by the Territory. We are also expecting the Commonwealth to cooperate fully in relation to the Territory's business activities continuing to be exempt from most Commonwealth taxes when they become Territory owned corporations.
Since presenting the Territory Owned Corporations Bill 1990 on 29 November, it has been found necessary to propose a number of minor amendments to the Bill. The proposed amendments deal, for example, with clarifying, beyond all doubt, that TOC subsidiaries are to be 100 per cent wholly government owned; also to deal with enhancing the mechanisms for shareholder oversight of assets of TOCs in cases where they may mortgage significant assets; to deal with aligning the provisions for the Auditor-General, as company auditor of these corporations, with the requirements under the Commonwealth corporations legislation; and there are one or two minor editorial corrections. I table the amendments to the Bill, and the related explanatory memorandum, so that people have them available before we get to the detail stage.
Arising from these amendments, and from consultations with the ACT Trades and Labour Council on the general issue of corporatisation, which the members opposite do not seem to believe ever took place, the principles paper that I tabled when the Bill was introduced also requires some minor amendments. The main amendment to the paper arising from the union consultations is to provide that any staff employed by a Territory owned corporation at the date of corporatisation, and who become surplus to their requirements, will be eligible for assistance in placement elsewhere in the ACT Government Service. Mr Speaker, the amendments that are proposed in the principles paper are contained in another paper, which I also table.
Turning briefly to the issues raised by the Leader of the Opposition and Mr Berry, there are some points that need to be made. First of all, of course, their objections to this Bill are totally spurious. They know that to be so. On the question of privatisation, which is a word that they use, I reiterate the point I emphasised earlier in my presentation speech, namely, that the Bill is not about privatisation.
Simply put, had I wanted to privatise these functions, I would have done so. But we have gone to great lengths to explain that it is not privatisation. We have gone to great lengths to say that they must be 100 per cent Territory owned corporations. The reason that the Bill provides that all Territory owned corporations and any subsidiaries must be 100 per cent Territory owned is that the Commonwealth ACT (Self-Government) Act 1988 and regulations made under that Act do not enable the Assembly to legislate in respect of companies that are not 100 per cent Territory owned. There is no question of turning these corporations into private companies.
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