Page 1909 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 14 June 1994
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STATE BANK OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
(TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKING) BILL 1994
Debate resumed from 19 May 1994, on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR KAINE (8.17): Madam Speaker, on the face of it that this is quite innocuous legislation, and it is being enacted along with similar legislation in all the States and Territories of Australia. As the Treasurer said in her presentation speech, the purpose of the Bill is to facilitate the restructuring of the State Bank of South Australia after that bank's failure in 1991. The Opposition supports the Bill. It seems a sensible thing to do. This is an act of comity by the ACT Government to help another administration recover from the mismanagement of the bank under a Labor government in the State of South Australia.
The Bill provides procedural and validating measures to allow the new Bank of South Australia Ltd to deal with advances which the failed State Bank of South Australia made to corporate customers here in the ACT. Whether the comprehensive provisions of the Bill cover every possible situation that may arise in dealings between the Bank of South Australia and its ancestor's corporate customers in the ACT, I guess, is not a matter that need concern this Assembly. Presumably the Bill, short and all as it is, does encompass all of the possible situations. As I said, a Bill to similar effect is to be enacted in all States and Territories, and I expect that the Treasurer will confirm that there have been both negotiation and agreement with South Australia about the content of the Bill. Of course, if that were so, it would be the first time in history that there had been negotiation and agreement on much, but I would hope that the Chief Minister would confirm that at least.
However, although the Bill seems innocuous enough and protects the interests of the State Bank of South Australia, I submit that it is this Assembly's responsibility to protect the interests of ACT residents, both real and corporate. In her presentation speech on the Bill the Treasurer told us that the State Bank of South Australia, or its trading successor, the South Australian Asset Management Corporation, has no assets in the ACT relating to premises, plant or equipment, and that the only State Bank of South Australia business in the ACT relates to advances to corporate customers secured by mortgage debentures and other forms of security over the borrowed assets.
I believe that it would have been useful for us to know the measure of the problem the Bill is designed to deal with in the ACT. Just how many customers does the State Bank of South Australia have here? What amount of assets secured to that bank in the ACT comes within the ambit of the Bill? Are we talking about $10, $10m or $100m? In other words, while it is proper for the ACT to provide help and succour to another administration in dealing with a problem, I think it would be useful to know the scale of the problem that this Bill pretends to deal with in the ACT. There is nothing in the Bill, in the explanatory memorandum or in the Chief Minister's speech that tells us that.
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