Page 4970 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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Mr Berry made much, of course, in his usual rambling ideological way, of the Government cutting back on community services. I can only assume that Mr Berry keeps hoping that he will make his mark if he says that often enough. He has got to the point where no-one is listening to him. To make my point, there are no media present; they have lost total interest in you because you say it over and over again. They are sick of it, just as everybody else is. Repeating it might get it into the Hansard and you might mail it out to your acolytes, but they are the only people who read it. Nobody else reads it; they know it to be the canard that it is.
On the funding of community services, the question of the provision by Territory owned corporations of any significant non-commercial services will normally be a matter for the Government, of course, and not for the boards. Where such a corporation has been directed to perform such community services, the Government will fund the cost. Despite Ms Follett saying that we have not said or done anything about this, in fact, clause 16 of the Bill provides specifically for that. It reads:
Where the voting shareholders of a Territory owned corporation request it or a subsidiary to perform, to cease to perform or refrain from performing an activity or to perform an activity in a manner that is different from the manner in which the directors intend ... the voting shareholders may, by written direction, require the company to comply with the request.
At subclause (5) it reads:
The Territory shall reimburse the company for the net reasonable expense of complying with a direction.
It is there in black and white. We have made specific provision for the possibility that a corporation might be directed to perform some such community service, and if it does it will be reimbursed. There is no question about it.
On employee terms and conditions, my department has been consulting with the ACT Trades and Labour Council on these issues over the past month or so. Each of the issues raised by the Leader of the Opposition has been addressed during those consultations and the Government has provided a clear response in each case. For the information of members, I table a document forwarded to the ACT Trades and Labour Council early today which sets out the Government's responses to the very issues raised by the ACT Trades and Labour Council and, of course, parroted by the Leader of the Opposition here today without knowing that we have, in fact, responded.
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