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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (16 April) . . Page.. 894 ..

MR KAINE (10.50): I should like it noted that this inquiry was lengthy and detailed. I believe that the processes used by the committee were most meticulous in determining just what this Bill was about and what the consequences of it would be. In fact, the number of people who made submissions to and the number of witnesses who appeared before the committee, I think, speak for the complexity of the problem and of the matters that the committee had to consider.

Some of the matters raised were of importance to individuals and individual organisations, but we had to be careful that we did not lose track of what the Bill was about. Some of the discussion was quite wide-ranging and dealt with ramifications that were perhaps quite remote from the basic purpose of the Bill. I remind members that the purpose of this Bill and its effect are simply to give force to Part IV of the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act 1974 in relation to business activity under the jurisdiction of the ACT. Government activity in the ACT and elsewhere has not previously been under the conditions and terms of that Act, and that is what this Bill was intended to do; no more than that.

Despite all of the debate, all of the matters raised and all of the issues which were discussed at great length and which are summarised in the report itself, it is significant, I think, that the first recommendation of the committee is that the Bill be enacted. There was not even a suggestion that it should be amended. There was universal acceptance on the part of members of the committee that the Bill should be enacted.

That is not to say that there were not matters covered by the committee and presented by people attending the committee to give evidence that were of substance and that the Government should consider, even though they perhaps are not directly a result of the introduction of the Bill. Those matters flow from consideration of the questions of an interesting debate - and I am using the words in the report - about the "goodness of competition": Is competition necessarily good when you are talking about services that are to be delivered by government? Is it even a question that ought to be considered in the delivery of such services? There was an interesting debate about that. It is not reflected in any of the recommendations, incidentally; but there is an outline of the nature of the debate and the concerns that people had that, by an overemphasis on competition, even in connection with services being delivered by government, somehow the consumers might lose out. Although there are no conclusions or recommendations on it, I think the Government has to keep very carefully in mind that in all of this the interests of the ultimate user, the citizen out there who derives benefit from a delivery of services by the Commonwealth and by the Territory, have to be paramount. That is what it is all about or what it should be all about.

There was an interesting debate on the question of public benefit. How do you define public benefit? Where does it stop? What do you include in the definition of public benefit? Is it purely an economic thing; is it a financial thing; or does it go further? The debate on that matter also was wide-ranging and very interesting. It raised matters that the Government cannot idly set aside, because there is clearly far more to determining a public benefit than the question of how much it costs and whether you can put a dollar value on the service that is delivered in a competitive situation or a non-competitive situation. I believe that the Government should read the discussion in the report on these matters, even though the discussion is not necessarily reflected in the recommendations.

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