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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1703 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

measures which should be sufficient to satisfy even the most suspicious. I will run through them again. In meeting its commitments under the Competition Principles Agreement, the Government is obliged - I note "obliged" - to publish, by the end of June 1996, a policy statement regarding the implementation of competition neutrality principles, including an implementation timetable and a complaints mechanism. The Government is also obliged to publish an annual report on the implementation of the principles, including allegations and non-compliance.

Similarly, Mr Speaker, the Government is obliged, under the agreement, to develop by the end of June 1996 a timetable for the review and, where appropriate, reform of all existing legislation that restricts competition by the year 2000 and to publish an annual report on its progress. Where legislative reform is necessary, as a result of this review process, to implement competitive neutrality principles within a government business activity or to achieve appropriate structural reform of a public monopoly, such legislation is, of course, subject to scrutiny by the Assembly. In the case of significant reform proposals, a tailored public consultation process is also common, in line with the Government's commitment to open government.

These accountability mechanisms are, of course, in addition to those applying to the development of the budget, through which many of the reforms to government business activities resulting from competition policy implementation will be exposed for Assembly and public scrutiny. The Government is very firmly of the view that it would be inappropriate to establish an additional consultative mechanism, given that existing mechanisms would appear to provide sufficient opportunity for public scrutiny and input.

In her proposed amendment to her motion - I understand that Ms Tucker is proposing an amendment to her motion, and I will speak on that as well - she is now proposing that this new forum also monitor such issues as the development of community service obligations and competitive tendering and outsourcing. These were not included in her original motion. This Assembly needs to note that these are not issues which are part of the national competition policy debate at all. There is some common ground, as the Government must take into account any community service obligations when considering the costs and benefits of policy options under national competition policy. However, Government policy and decisions on both community service obligations and competitive tendering and outsourcing may also be made in the areas of government service quite removed from the effects of national competition policy. It is not, in the view of the Government, appropriate to simply lump these issues together in such an inappropriate and ill-considered way - overnight, so that we can vote on it and get it out of the way.

The Government will accept that, while each of the individual national competition policy reforms I have referred to is subject to sufficient scrutiny, there may be some value in utilising an existing accountability mechanism - specifically, a standing committee of this Assembly - to overview the combined implementation of national competition policy reforms in the ACT on an ongoing basis. However, the role of that committee should be limited to matters relating to the implementation of national competition policy,

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