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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (26 February) . . Page.. 458 ..

Mr Corbell: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The Minister is not answering the question. I specifically asked why the Government did not address the issue of staff restructuring. The Minister is not answering the question. I would ask you to direct him to do so.

MR SPEAKER: The Minister has confined himself, and he may answer the question as he sees fit, Mr Corbell.

MR STEFANIAK: Governments and government staff have some constraints, Mr Corbell - or have you not noticed? - on just how far they can actually go in terms of restructuring. It has been proven, Mr Corbell - and I suggest you lot might like to go and look at some of the Sydney pools, some of the Victorian pools and some of the Tasmanian pools and have a chat to people there, where pools have been run by other than government bodies - that greater efficiencies and better results can be achieved there and passed on to the community. Basically, this Government decided that it certainly would follow that course. I think it has been borne out, too. Even those figures indicate that the Government can quite properly make some significant savings, as a result of lower subsidies to these pools, by having them run in a more efficient way, and by the management of those pools being contracted out, which is exactly what we have done.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Corbell?

MR CORBELL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, given that the staff restructuring option was not considered and that you did not consider it, would you agree that the decision to contract out the management of ACT pools was purely an ideological one?

MR STEFANIAK: I want to say, for starters, Mr Corbell, that one of the reasons why we looked at more efficient ways of running pools was the problems we did have in running them with government staff and the problems inherent in trying to alleviate that with government staff. It is not quite correct to say that was not considered at all. That was something that was certainly in our minds. I do not happen to be one of these people who actually feel that governments cannot do things better than the private or non-government sector in all instances. There are certain things which governments, quite clearly, have to do and which are not appropriate for the non-government sector to do. This is not so much a case - nor would it be, I do not think, throughout Australia either - of blind economic rationalist ideology; this is really a case of just commonsense. As I said, the results are starting to show themselves even now.

MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr Stefaniak as Minister for Family Services. In answer to my question yesterday on the welfare of young people at Marlow Cottage, the Minister referred the Assembly to the Official Visitor's report in relation to Marlow Cottage and pointed out that Mr Aldcroft had been quite laudatory in his comments in relation to how that house is run and how there has been an improvement in the activities and control of children placed into care there. Why did the Minister fail to tell the Assembly that the Official Visitor, Mr Aldcroft, had subsequently written to the department? That letter was copied to Mr Stefaniak. I quote from it:

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