Page 2634 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 24 August 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
ADJOURNMENT
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! It being 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr Berry: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.
Question resolved in the negative.
VITAB CONTRACT
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
Debate resumed.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Lamont told us that there was a five percentage points difference between the New South Wales and Victorian offers. But yesterday he had to meekly admit - no doubt, before the censure motion came up - that, in fact, the difference was not quite five percentage points; that the New South Wales offer was actually 0.06 per cent higher than the Victorian offer. There is a slight difference. What is a factor of 100 between friends?
Then, when the plug finally was pulled on us, we had the incredible statement that we can survive being out of the superpool arrangement; we do not need to be in a superpool arrangement; we will be okay. That was before things started to go really badly and some TAB agencies in the ACT were losing up to 90 per cent of their turnover on a daily basis. Oops! Out came the foot from the mouth and the legs started to work like little pistons to make sure that the job was done in time; to make sure that this deal was stitched up before the six-month period of disqualification with Victoria elapsed and to get things back on track as quickly as possible after that point.
Mr Lamont has scarpered, I see. The other extraordinary statement was that we were kicked out of the Victorian TAB arrangement in the first place because they were privatising; that they did not want to have this wonderful ACTTAB with its link with VITAB as part of a privatised Victorian TAB. What happened? We ended up going back into the Victorian TAB on the very day it privatised, the very day it became Tabcorp, the new privatised Australian TAB. What happened to the problem with the privatised TABs? Apparently, we take whatever port we can get into, and this appears to be the only one.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .