Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (26 February) . . Page.. 454 ..

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS

MR SPEAKER: I inform members of the presence in the gallery of a delegation from Portugal led by the Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities Abroad, His Excellency Dr Jose Lello. On behalf of members, I bid you all a warm welcome.

Sitting suspended from 12.29 to 2.30 pm

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Pool and Leisure Centres

MR WHITECROSS: It is good to see Mr Humphries back for question time, Mr Speaker; but on this occasion my question is to the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Mr Stefaniak.

Mr Humphries: I need not have bothered; I will go home.

MR WHITECROSS: I will pause if you want to leave.

MR SPEAKER: Continue, Mr Whitecross.

MR WHITECROSS: Minister, on page 15 of the report of the Auditor-General "Contracting Pool And Leisure Centres", the Auditor-General said:

a formal feasibility study was not conducted prior to letting tenders to ensure that outsourcing was the best option ...

Minister, why was this not done?

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, in answer to Mr Whitecross's question: If he ever gets to find out, if he ever becomes the government, governments are here to govern and make decisions in relation to a number of matters. Mr Whitecross might like to go back and look at the 1995-96 budget papers, where this option of contracting out a number of government facilities, including swimming pools, was well and truly flagged by this Government. This Government came to office, realising that a number of things in the Territory could be done considerably better than they had been done before.

There is a wealth of evidence, too, Australia-wide of the best way of conducting facilities such as pools. The evidence certainly seemed to this Government to point to those facilities quite often being far better handled not by government. Accordingly, it was very much a Government decision, as a result of not just rather horrendous overruns in costs here, which meant nothing to you lot when you were in office. It was up to close on $1.8m that the pools were subsidised. We made some efficiencies, even before contracting out, which got it down to about $1.6m.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .