Page 4180 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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especially in relation to traffic safety areas that the NRMA wants to have this money ploughed back into. As Dr Kinloch suggests, the Government has not consulted terribly well in relation to this. It is early days yet. They can rectify that, in regard to this windfall which the ACT community has, courtesy of the most responsible attitude by the NRMA. As Mr Connolly said, they did not have to do it, but they did - and top bouquets to them for that.
That windfall can be used most appropriately and most productively, because we are talking big bickies here. Apart from the $2m subsidy, Mr Connolly - and I know that you Labor people are not terribly good at economics - if you invest the other $20m plus the $10m, you will get at least $3m and maybe $4m in interest per year, and those moneys can certainly be very well used. In fact, the schemes I have suggested probably amount to only about half a million dollars. So, certainly, there is a lot of scope there for this money to be well and truly used, and you should certainly consult with the relevant people in the community, as Dr Kinloch and the Rally suggest, in relation to that. Thanks once again to the NRMA. Certainly, a lot of good use can be made of this windfall.
MR COLLAERY (3.56): I have some brief comments to make. The MPI, as I read it, is about consultation. I endorse all that members have said about the processes that led the NRMA to identify excess profits and about the manner in which the NRMA have quite properly approached the Government and the issue. I do not want to leave on the record, however, that the NRMA is the only benevolent company in this country. I can think of Fletcher Jones and others that have a system of returning profits either to employees or to shareholders. Be that as it may, there is no debate here about the NRMA's motives and actions.
What the MPI seeks to do is to throw up a very interesting parallel with the way in which the Labor Government to some extent, and certainly Mr Moore to a great extent, have been attacking us for making a policing agreement without consulting the people. We hear nothing from Labor's satellite this afternoon when a similar issue arises. The Government and the NRMA have got together without consulting the ACT people. Without the Government making a ministerial statement or bringing on a debate in this Assembly, and without there being any adequate system of public consultation, the Government and the NRMA have made a decision. As the joint press release says, "ACT Government and NRMA agree on profit sharing".
That has an element of a patronising approach to consultative government. It does not fit with what Chief Minister Follett said she would deliver to the people of the ACT; but, of course, we have learnt, much to our disappointment, about the way in which the Follett Government treats consultation.
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