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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2661 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

This system cannot lead to better outcomes for society unless it is accompanied by well thought out mechanisms for ensuring that the broader interests of the community are met as well. This has been clearly lacking.

CanDeliver is a last minute response to the reality of competition let loose. We have been saying in this place consistently that there must be debate and that there must be caution in applying the principles of the free market to government policy. We initiated the select committee inquiry into competition policy for that reason, and we objected to the corporatisation of ACTEW for that reason; but, no, this can-do Government just goes ahead and does, and then, when they see undesirable consequences, they try to deal with them. I am not saying that we must never have a new way of managing the delivery of services, but I am saying that there has not been nearly enough thought put into what the implications of these government policies are. It reminds me a little bit of the Reagan era. Some of you may have seen on television this week the program about his policies. They were remarkably similar to the rhetoric coming from John Howard at the moment.

The IT industry is one of good bets and we have no problem with some form of strategic assistance from government if it is going to produce employment outcomes. The motivation behind CanDeliver is fine - to try to ensure that ACT firms can access Federal Government IT outsourcing. The problem I have is that when it comes to economic incentives of nearly any kind there is little accountability built into it, and it is taxpayers' money we are talking about here. How much incentive is being given to the private sector? When I was briefed on this matter it was made clear that to supply this service from within government would be too expensive, and I still have to ask why? What is it that costs so much more? Is it really the fact that the private sector does it that much cheaper? Have we offered incentives? What is the value of those incentives? We have already seen the deal with Fujitsu. What really happened there?

I noticed that there were some interesting questions asked in the Canberra Times on this matter. The journalists were saying, "One can only presume that Fujitsu will be competing for contracts against Computer Power and CanDeliver". So, to make sure the playing field is level, one would think that our jolly pharmacist will make sure that Computer Power receives as much as Fujitsu. A new mantra has arrived. We have already talked about it - commercial-in-confidence. These are issues that we do have to be concerned about, and I believe the community is very concerned about them. Does doing public service in a businesslike way actually mean that our community will be run by businesses whose principal objective is maximisation of profit? Ministerial responsibility could be a thing of the past and elected representatives will be sued if they object, perhaps.

We will be supporting this Bill, but I also want to make it quite clear that I am most dissatisfied. I read in the paper about CanDeliver and its failure, which is disappointing; but I take Mr Moore's point and hopefully they will have more success in the future. Basically, my concern is that I read in the paper about how it was well down the track and trying to win contracts before we had a debate here. It is again an example of the Executive style of this Government and makes the public statements of Mrs Carnell yesterday about open government very unconvincing.

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