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before the Federal Parliament that seeks to look at the social and environmental implications of the Hilmer report. The debate about the appropriateness of the Hilmer recommendations is just beginning in the national arena, and it would be irresponsible of this Government to base its actions on ACTION, ACTEW and other government enterprises on a report that has not been fully debated by the community and that may well be proved to have serious social and environmental problems. I am happy to table the terms of reference of this inquiry which is currently looking at the Hilmer report.

Currently, only a few services associated with ACTION are provided through external sources. These include the cleaning of terminals and bus depots and the advertising internally in the buses. In addition, I understand that a few country school bus runs are operated by private operators. However, these do not affect the basic operating structure of ACTION. We do not think that it is appropriate that any further services be contracted out without full approval of this Assembly. I emphasise that the intention of this motion is not to stop the Government investigating and putting forward other options for ACTION or other forms of public transport - I am very pleased to hear that the Government is intending to look at light rail - nor is it the intention to limit the services provided by private operators as an incidental part of interstate operations. It is intended to ensure that ACTION's fundamental operating structure is not corporatised or parts of its routes sold off or leased to other operators.

Mr De Domenico and Mrs Carnell have both talked about models that they are looking at. I would like to see those models. I am very interested in seeing the models that they are speaking about and I am sure that other members of this Assembly would love to look at those models, too. Again, we are not seeking to constrain the Government; but this Liberal Government did come to power saying that it was committed to open government, and I am curious as to how Government members plan to remain committed to open government, when they are continually talking about the constraints on their decision-making that this Assembly imposes on them, and when they seek to have access to information that the Government obviously has access to but which the Assembly does not.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion (by Mr Humphries) agreed to:

That the Assembly do now adjourn.

Assembly adjourned at 5.46 pm


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