Page 4152 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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Totalcare Industries
MR STEVENSON: My question of Mr Connolly relates to urban affairs. It concerns the maintenance centre at Mitchell, now called Totalcare Industries. I believe that the centre has recently been corporatised and has about one year to become financially viable, and I believe that there are some concerns among staff members there as to the future of that particular centre. I wonder whether Mr Connolly would be good enough to inform the Assembly.
MR CONNOLLY: I thank Mr Stevenson for his question. In fact, the Totalcare centre at Mitchell has not been corporatised, although the Labor Government will be considering proposals to move it along to a more corporate form in keeping with the recommendations of a Labor Party examination. Totalcare operates on a commercial basis. It has a core function of servicing the hospitals, but it has an excellent commercial laundry operation and a commercial incinerator operation which in fact is technically in advance of anything available in New South Wales.
It currently services clients from as far afield as Sydney and Melbourne. There is enormous potential for it to increase its commercial clientele. It will be competing directly with other commercial linen operations in particular; so, the unanimous view of the Australian Labor Party was that it was an appropriate body to be moved onto a more commercial footing. As opposed to a monopoly supplier of an essential service such as ACTEW for whom there is no competitor in the supply of services, Mitchell operates on a competitive basis with the private sector. It is an efficient organisation; it is doing very well. It returned a dividend to government this year, as indeed did all of the government business enterprises, and I am sure that it will have a viable long-term future.
Demolition of House at Manuka
MR JENSEN: Mr Speaker, my question is directed to Mr Wood in his capacity as Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. I refer the Minister to an answer to a supplementary question I asked on 15 October in relation to the demolition at No. 18 Bougainville Street, Manuka. I asked for details of the approvals for the demolition and certificates of the unsoundness of the building. His answer, and I quote from page 12 of the proof Hansard, was:
This information, I would expect, is quite freely available, and I will facilitate the release of whatever information is there.
My question is: When is the Minister proposing to make that information available to me in response to that question?
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