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Competition reform will produce major economic benefits for Australia and the Government is determined to see that consumers, business and employees are the winners.

I go on:

The Government's first major competition initiative is the reform of the electricity industry.

I read this from the same document:

Corporatisation is not to be regarded as a path to privatisation. The Government will use corporatisation as a vehicle for economic reform for the benefit of the community on whose behalf the Government has shareholder responsibilities.

Assembly members might wonder who produced such a document, which so strongly advocates corporatisation and competition reforms. It is not a Liberal policy document; nor is it the product of some economic rationalist academic think-tank. In fact, those quotes are all from the financial statement delivered in the New South Wales Parliament a fortnight ago by the new Labor Treasurer of that State, Mr Michael Egan - not exactly a renowned Liberal. In the same statement, he detailed plans to corporatise more than 15 government-owned enterprises, including the State's electricity distributors and the TAB - surprise, surprise! By 1 January 1996, the New South Wales Government will have established an electricity market across the State. In other words, it is a Labor government embracing competitive reforms and embracing corporatisation.

The New South Wales Government is by no means alone. The Federal Labor Government, of course, has been corporatising government-owned enterprises for more than a decade. In Queensland, the Goss Labor Government began corporatising a host of government businesses three years ago. We heard, when Mr De Domenico quoted from a letter today, that now even the TLC says that it does not oppose in principle the corporatisation of ACTEW. Yet here in the ACT the isolationism of the Labor Party's hard Left has reigned supreme. The Labor Party here in the ACT has steadfastly refused to consider reforms that Labor governments elsewhere in the country have adopted - and not adopted screaming and shouting, but embraced, Mr Speaker.

In government, the Labor Party denied ACT residents the benefits of a more competitive, dynamic structure for government-owned businesses. They said no, they would not even consider it. In fact, they went to the length of decorporatising ACTTAB. That showed a government that simply was not willing to learn. That is interesting. What happened? There are two examples of corporatisation in the ACT. The first is Totalcare. Totalcare was making a loss. It was corporatised, and it is now making a small profit. The other example is ACTTAB. ACTTAB was decorporatised and it is now making a loss. What does that tell you? They are the only two examples we have, and it is very definite. We have a 100 per cent success rate here for corporatisation.

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