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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2083 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

It is only $1.5m, not the $3m you see in the budget papers". This is the sort of duplicity we have been getting from the Government side on this, in their attempt to rewrite history to put themselves in a better light.

Let us get back to the auction. At the auction the average price paid for plates was $162,000, compared to $242,000 at last year's auction. That is one-third of the value of taxi licences in the ACT. That is $80,000 off the value of a taxi licence in the ACT.

Mr Connolly: Great for small business!

MR WHITECROSS: Yes, good for small business, as Mr De Domenico has said. Mr De Domenico feels that this is good for small business, but I can assure Mr De Domenico that, moving around the Albert Hall yesterday, I did not find too many small business people who thought it was good for small business.

Mr Kaine: You did not get too many who said that what you stuffed up for the last four years was much good.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Kaine, we were not wiping $80,000 off the value of people's small businesses, were we? At the auction a number of auctioneers - not just one, but a number of auctioneers - said to me, "This auction is not very well conducted. Where are the spruikers? Where are the spotters to spot the people putting their hands up? Where is the atmosphere, where is the goading and the cajoling to get people to put in the extra $5,000?". There was none of that. Where was the atmosphere? Was the hall the right hall? There are all these sorts of questions. What we saw was a very flat auction yesterday, not an auction that was getting the best value for money for the ACT. That is not surprising, because the department did not try to get best value for money for the ACT. They just wanted to get out of it for $250, not $400 or $600 or $800. For the sake of a few hundred dollars, we have a situation where this taxi auction has brought in $600,000 less than was budgeted for by this Government.

Mr De Domenico and Mrs Carnell have an excuse for that. Their excuse is, "We are not responsible for the market. There has been a change in market forces. Market forces have duped us". In the five weeks between the budget and now, the market has changed so dramatically that 20 per cent has been wiped off what they told us in the Estimates Committee was the reserve price for this auction. They are getting $600,000 less for these taxi plates. They are getting 20 per cent less than they said was the minimum they would sell these plates for.

Mr Kaine: What about the $30m that got wiped off land sales the year before last under the Follett budget?

Mr De Domenico: What happened to land sales under the Follett budget?

Mr Kaine: They just collapsed.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

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