Page 2323 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 16 September 1992
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in public and put on a board so that everybody could see what tenders had been made. Nobody had the advantage of knowing what somebody else had tendered previously; they were all opened at exactly the same time. The tender always went to the person with the lowest bid, unless there was a particular reason for doing otherwise. If there was such a reason, that reason was stated publicly and a justification had to be given. That is a very positive form of dealing with tenders.
Mr Connolly: But what if someone looked at the tender box beforehand? That would be an offence, would it not?
MR MOORE: The point is that when you use an appropriately secure box there ought not be a problem. I think Mr Connolly's interjection really has to do with the kernel of this Bill; that is, if somebody who has the key then uses it, what do we do? Is he taken before the court, with the possibility of a two-year gaol sentence? The point I make in reply to that is that governments are not the only people who provide a tender system, and that penalty and that provision should apply - not so much looking after No. 1 in an Act called the Crimes (Offences Against the Government) Act, but equally to anybody else who is entitled to the same kind of protection.
That is why this Act has some difficulties. In fact, the whole Act, by its very existence, has some problems; but I have chosen for the time being to limit this amending Bill to two sections. Section 12 is consequential upon removing sections 10 and 11. Section 11 deals with stealing property from the Territory. Why should it be any different to steal property from the Territory than, for example, from the Advance Bank or from Mr Humphries? There ought not be a difference. Why should there be a difference between stealing property from the Territory when you are an employee of the Territory and stealing property from Westpac when you are an employee of Westpac?
Why do we have these special clauses? If we need these special clauses for the Territory, we should also recognise that other people need the same sort of protection. The Territory is such a big organisation that what is required is special evidentiary provisions whereby an officer of the Territory can, in effect, represent the Territory, and that is an important issue. But exactly the same issue applies to any other big organisation. Some of the business organisations that are represented in the Territory are bigger than the Territory and have greater assets and a bigger budget than the Territory. I do not think that is an appropriate argument, and it requires very careful consideration. In putting forward this Bill, a series of issues need to be very carefully considered.
Another argument that has been presented to me in opposition to this is that private enterprise has one very big advantage over government; that is, if you find somebody who has been leaking information, you can fire them. I concede that that is a major difference between the Territory and a big organisation. However, we also need to keep in mind that very big organisations do not operate without union involvement, and in the past, where a union felt that somebody had been dismissed inappropriately, they have been prepared to fight the issue tenaciously, and quite rightly so. So, although it can be said that somebody can be fired, it is simply not that easy when you are dealing with an entity whose size is equivalent to that of the Territory.
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