Page 4414 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 1993
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The report also suggested that the main reasons for the costs related to drivers. The reasons were things such as the absence of broken shifts, a high proportion of labour oncosts, the meal allowance and, as the Auditor-General pointed out recently, disability payments and a number of other problems with oncosts. Mr Connolly suggested that there really were problems in relation to maintenance and repairs, but these problems are quite substantial. We have suboptimal maintenance procedures, according to this report. We have high expenditure on replacements, again according to a report commissioned by ACTION. We have a low proportion of productive time, one of the things that micro-economic reform must embrace. We have problems with our general overheads, the highest level of admin and support staff costs, and high costs of land and buildings; and, in relation to capital charges, we really have far too many new buses with very low average ages. Madam Speaker, those are the areas that must be addressed if we are going to look at micro-economic reform within our bus services, and I understand that Mr Connolly and the unions involved are very keen to embrace this approach.
Mr Berry is the problem here. We have a Minister for Industrial Relations who is more than willing to bring the public health system in the ACT to a halt for $500,000 per year - I say that again; the public health system in this city has come to a halt for $500,000 per year - but he is unwilling to embrace sensible micro-economic reform for what is, at the very least, $15m per year. This is a situation on which the union and the Minister directly responsible are keen to come to some sort of amicable settlement. What we have in the ACT is a situation where our teachers and our doctors are under huge amounts of pressure. The union is keen to come to a solution - money that we desperately need in this city - and Mr Berry simply is not.
MADAM SPEAKER: The discussion has concluded.
FOOD (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 2) 1993
Detail Stage
Clause 6
Debate resumed from 7 December 1993.
Debate (on motion by Ms Szuty) adjourned.
SUPREME COURT (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 2) 1993
Debate resumed from 14 October 1993, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.21): Madam Speaker, the Supreme Court (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) makes a number of important changes to the way in which the Supreme Court in the ACT operates. I believe that, for the most part, these changes are quite welcome. I hope that they will result in the Supreme Court operating on a smoother and more efficient basis. Since the ACT obtained control over the Supreme Court in, I think, 1991 we have been progressively looking at
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