Page 5810 - Week 18 - Tuesday, 10 December 1991
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The second point was essentially a load of ideological claptrap. It is interesting that ideology has been thumped on the table by the Liberal Party here today. They are accusing Labor of taking ideological decisions. As Mr Berry said, there is nothing wrong with taking a decision based on a political philosophy. The irony here is that it is Labor that has taken a very sound commonsense approach, looking at each case on its merits, and it is this Liberal Party, wedded to its ideological obsession with corporatisation as the simple answer, that just has a parrot-like solution - "Corporatise, corporatise".
Mr Berry: Privatise.
MR CONNOLLY: And "Privatise, privatise" further down the track, of course, as Mr Berry says. It was fascinating in the early days of the Labor Government, when Mr Humphries was issuing a series of press releases on the supposed massive benefits of corporatisation and the peril that Labor was allegedly putting the Territory to by delaying a decision, as he said. We had a series of press releases that suggested that if we corporatised ACTEW we would make a $12m profit, and if we corporatised this organisation there would be a $12m profit. It was really a sort of magic pudding approach - that all you have to do is corporatise and you can pull $12m. I was waiting for the press release saying that if we corporatised the cemeteries trust or the showground trust there would be $12m in profit in that as well. It is simply not a simple solution.
Corporatising does not of itself lead to more efficiencies. It does not of itself lead to better dividends. Corporatisation can be a sensible approach, depending on the circumstances, and the Labor Party stood back from this ideologically inspired decision that the former Government had made to rush into this. We stood back and had a look at the matter. In relation to Totalcare we thought that corporatisation was appropriate, principally because this is a body that is out there competing with the private sector.
If you are in the tourist industry in Canberra or the region - we are hoping that the market is not just within the ACT - and you want your laundry done, it really does not matter whether it is done by Totalcare or Alsco or one of the other commercial linen providers. It is straight, even competition, and we think it is appropriate in those circumstances that the government owned body be set up with the same structure, the structure that the private sector is familiar with, and that it enjoy no taxation or other advantages over its private sector competitors so that we cannot be accused of having other than a level playing field. We think that makes sense, given the competitive nature of the market that Totalcare is about to enter.
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