Page 3229 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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Mr Connolly: What did we spend when Trevor was Chief Minister?
MR DE DOMENICO: I do not know.
Mr Connolly: About $75m, you might find.
MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Connolly keeps throwing up what happened during the Alliance Government. I want to know, Mr Connolly, what is going to happen under your stewardship. I invite myself to tell you what is going to happen, Mr Connolly. The answer is nothing. Let me also now tell you why the answer is nothing. When you look at it very quickly, we are going to make massive cuts to the workshop area. What are we going to do to the bus drivers and to the actual buses? The answer is nothing.
Why are we going to do nothing, Madam Speaker? We all know why we are going to do nothing. Because the trade union movement, and in particular the Transport Workers Union, would absolutely and utterly bring Mr Connolly down kicking and screaming. They would threaten all sorts of things if Mr Connolly even contemplated things like competitive tendering or the use of casual and part-time drivers, or perhaps - horror, shock, horror! - even using people who work in the workshop who are also qualified to drive buses. We will say, "Good on you, Terry". If you can fix that, Mr Connolly, I will say, "Good on you".
Ms Ellis: Good; get it ready.
MR DE DOMENICO: All right, I will, Ms Ellis. Mr Connolly said in a press release recently that he has to critically examine the bus replacement program. What does he do in critically examining it? He is going to spend part of $11m - $8.5m, actually - to buy 33 new buses. Notwithstanding the fact that we have a 3.3 per cent reduction in patronage, we need 33 new buses at a cost of $8.5m. This is where the priorities of this Government are.
Mr Davis quite rightly indicated this morning about $15m worth of reductions in ACTION buses. Part of that money from the reduction in the ACTION bus budget could be used to fund the fact that we have put up the petrol levy by 0.5c. Here is one part of the costing for the 0.5c petrol levy. That is one thing. Who could ever forget what happened two weeks ago? Who could ever forget two weeks ago when Mr Connolly scurried away when someone suggested that there was going to be a colour change to the ACTION buses at a cost of - - -
Mr Connolly: Because it was nonsense. It was a figment of your fevered imagination.
MR DE DOMENICO: "Because it was nonsense", Mr Connolly says. Mr Connolly says that it was nonsense, but that is not what Mr Wadsworth said. Anyway, thankfully, Mr Connolly, on a public platform after that, was sort of muted and said that it was not on. Credit has to be given to Mr Connolly, too, because when they were about to spend over $300,000, at about $8,000 to $10,000 a time, to build bus-shelters, he did say that that was an extravagance. Mr Connolly was not prepared to entertain that extravagance and reduced the cost to $100,000. They are the sorts of things that can be done, and more needs to be done to make sure that we can afford not to put on that petrol levy that Mrs Carnell has alluded to.
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