Page 2349 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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Government businesses which operate commercially are another tenet of basic New Zealand public service mentality, and that obviously is what Mr Kaine wants to bring in. There is nothing wrong with a government organisation operating commercially in terms of commercial business practice, such as allowing structures such as ACTEW to look for business opportunities outside their core business, allowing internal change to occur, allowing experience and expertise to be built up within that organisation. We support all of those types of things. But that is not what Mr Kaine supports, and it is not what Mrs Carnell supports. Their idea of having a commercial entity, which this amendment of theirs would allow, is simply a fee or charge for everything. Any social justice objective at all would be out the window. That is the New Zealand model. Let us face it. All of the amendments of the Liberals in relation to this Bill, and this one in particular, are aimed at that particular tenet. For any of you to sit across there and deny that - - -
Mrs Carnell: Why would we bother?
MR LAMONT: You are not denying it?
Mrs Carnell: Why would we bother?
Mr Cornwell: Why would we bother? You have the numbers. We know that you are just filibustering.
MR LAMONT: Madam Speaker, I rest my case. They cannot deny it. All of their amendments are based on the economic rationalist model of public administration. That is what this amendment goes to, and that is why it should be opposed by all thinking members of the Assembly.
MR DE DOMENICO (3.17): Madam Speaker, until Mr Lamont stood up I was not going to comment on this.
Mr Kaine: Mr Lamont did not say anything, so there is nothing to respond to.
MR DE DOMENICO: Thank you, Mr Kaine. Mr Lamont said very little, as usual. He tried to filibuster. He tried personal abuse, which is common. As hard as it may make the Labor Party think, the amendments put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, and this one in particular, are not dragged out of the air by the Opposition without thinking about them. Mr Lamont would be very surprised as to whom the Opposition spoke to.
Mrs Carnell: It is the jolly Queensland model, basically.
MR DE DOMENICO: As Mrs Carnell says, it is the Queensland model, the Queensland Labor Government model. It is not only the Queensland Labor Government model; it is in New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand; in fact, all over the world. Mr Lamont waxed lyrical about all sorts of things that the Liberal Party said in its budget response. The Industry Commission, established by the Federal Labor Government, said that the only jurisdiction on earth that did not look at reality, literally, was the ACT Labor Government. That is because the ACT Labor Government does not work on commonsense. It works on political ideology.
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