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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 479 ..

After the word "Technology" add "(other than approximately ten pages which are `commercial in confidence', which will be provided to Assembly Members)".

This is, indeed, a compromise and gives us the opportunity to assess what the Chief Minister and Mr Humphries are saying in their argument. If members support this, it reflects a very tolerant approach and will give us time to look at those pages and to assess whether or not we will bring it back into this Assembly and have those pages tabled as well.

I hear from the Government words like "illegal", "we will be sued", and so on. We are speaking about documents being tabled under parliamentary privilege, and as far as the use by members is concerned there is absolute privilege. As far as the broader use in the community is concerned, obviously there is qualified privilege. Mr Humphries understands those things. Mrs Carnell by now ought to understand them and I believe that she does. So to come in here and say that the argument is that this is going to be illegal carries no weight whatsoever. That is a power this Assembly has as a parliament of Australia. Indeed, documents that are tabled in the Assembly, and that is what we are dealing with, have parliamentary privilege. That is the first argument.

The second argument is that, because we have this document, there will be tenders put and the Government will miss out. That is exactly the flip side of the argument. Once people know roughly what the Government is thinking, then the tendering can be that much more vigorous and we will see that there is an advantage to the Government. I would also argue that there may be some disadvantages to the Government in financial terms of having a largely sunlight policy of allowing people to see what the Government is thinking. It seems to me that that is a price worth paying. When the community can see what is going on and they can understand what is going on, that is a much healthier situation. Indeed, that is the thrust behind what I am saying. We have here a very significant policy that we debated yesterday in a matter of public importance debate, a very significant change that can have a major impact not just on small business in this Territory but also on the union members involved, as the CPSU points out, and on the Public Service administration. It is a significant change.

I have put on the table that, under certain restraints and certain conditions, I believe that outsourcing has a place. It is not that I am opposed to the policy as such; it is that I think we have to do it right. If we get it wrong - and most of us agree that they got it wrong in South Australia, and I think the same could be said of many examples in New Zealand - we stand to have a major problem in terms of loss of business and loss of employment in the ACT. When we have a report like this - whether the Government agrees with it or not is another issue - let us get it out and table it. You have done it before. The Government distanced itself, and I must say quite appropriately, from that entirely inadequate report, Governing Canberra, which also attempted to talk about - - -

Mr Humphries: That was different, Michael. There was no commercial-in-confidence information in that.

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