Page 953 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 March 1991
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PUBLIC WORKS CONTRACTS
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MR SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr Connolly proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The failure of the Government to properly and prudently administer public works contracts in the Australian Capital Territory so as to protect the interests of subcontractors and suppliers.
MR CONNOLLY (3.47): Mr Speaker, this is a matter of real concern to a large section of the ACT community, and a matter of particular concern to the trade union movement in this Territory. This is an area where the trade union movement is not so much defending the rights of employees, which is what one normally thinks of as the role of the trade union movement, but standing up for the rights of self-employed small business people who, perhaps in the popular mind, would not be seen as fertile ground for trade unionists.
But, in fact, a lot of independent small businessmen, subcontractors in the building and construction industry, are proud members of their trade unions and the trade unions in this Territory have been doing a very positive job in advancing their interests. It is unfortunate that the union movement in the Territory has had to devote such resources to advancing their interests because of the tragic series of collapses of major head contractors or project managers, which has resulted in a couple of prominent fiascos on building sites in this Territory.
To some extent we are traversing well-travelled ground here, because the Opposition sponsored a matter of public importance late last year in relation to the Shelleys fiasco, and I will not go over that ground again. At the time of that debate, the Minister, Mr Duby, assured the house that improvements had been made, and that, in particular, the project management technique ought to operate to ensure that individuals were not again left high and dry, having performed a lot of work but not being paid. That reassured the community to some extent.
At the time the Opposition was calling, very strongly, for more prudent methods of administration within Public Works. It was calling for a system of checking to ensure that subcontractors and suppliers were paid on a monthly basis before the next month's cheques were paid out to the head contractor. That demand was met with some ridicule by government spokespersons. There was a suggestion that we were calling for an army of bureaucrats to be overseeing every public works contract, and that what the Opposition was calling for would be impracticably expensive.
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