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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2659 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

questions like "Why did we not get the Finance contract?" - that sort of thing - and actually doing some real work, instead of sitting in her office and saying, "How can I put out the next press release? How can I get on TV tonight?". That is what Canberrans really want, because what Canberrans want is jobs.

Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister believes that all she has to do is look like she is trying. I am sorry; trying is not good enough. What Canberrans want is results. They do not want to keep reading press releases about CanDeliver having applied for this contract, that contract or the other contract. What they want to hear is that CanDeliver has won some. What they want to read is that they have a Chief Minister who actually cares and actually goes to the trouble of finding out why they did not win the last contract, so that she can ensure that they are properly equipped to win the next contract. Mr Speaker, that is what it is all about.

Mr Speaker, the Labor Party will be supporting this because we think it is a step in the right direction, but it will work in practice only if the Chief Minister pays more attention to the real issues, pays more attention to her knitting and less attention to the press release. There is much more to this than Mrs Carnell's obsession with public relations. It is about winning some jobs for Canberrans.

This Bill should not be necessary. If we had a proper Federal government in Australia, they would not be giving away Canberra's jobs to New Zealand companies, to New South Wales companies and to other private companies. They ought to be staying in Canberra, Mr Speaker. It is a crying shame that we have a Federal government which is desperately prosecuting a policy of reducing the amount of employment in Canberra, and a Chief Minister in the ACT who solidly supports what they are doing. I can only hope that the bandaid saves a job or two for one or two people and there will be one or two fewer people in Canberra hurt by the Chief Minister's solid support for John Howard's policies of contracting out and giving our jobs away to other people.

MR MOORE (5.29): It is interesting, Mr Speaker, that this Bill to enhance our Territory-owned corporations by including another Territory-owned corporation should come up just after I was saying that I have doubts about the role of Territory-owned corporations and whether or not we should deal with them. But I must say that that was about the actions of one individual and fits into a series of actions which I thought were fine. I think it is appropriate to use the opportunity to raise that question about ensuring accountability and ensuring that Territory-owned corporations are not associated with a single individual. I think that notion is a silly notion and we ought to make sure that it does not stand up, that it does not get any legs.

That having been said, Mr Speaker, this Bill is about CanDeliver. I think it is a very important piece of legislation that will help us to take some action to try to win jobs for Canberra or, particularly in the initial instance, to try to retain some jobs in Canberra by getting the appropriate people together. I congratulate the Chief Minister and her staff who put this together in her department for preparing this action. Every business that I know puts in for a stack of contracts, Mr Whitecross, and they win some, they lose some and they keep going. That is the way it is when you are putting in tenders for particular jobs, and I think most businesses around Canberra see it that way.

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