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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3048 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Members may shrug that off and say, "Well, senior public servants. Of course, they would get good service". However, just last week we received a letter from a QC. QCs are not usually people who go around telling people how good they are, but I would like to read from the letter. It says:

I have lived in Canberra for 31 years and over that period I have lost count of the number of times I have been to the Motor Registry to have vehicles checked.

On Wednesday 20 August 1997 I arrived just in time to be the second-last vehicle checked and was checked in lane No. 3 by one of your officers whose name I believe to be John Alcroft. He was in company with another gentleman whose name I do not know but who had a moustache.

It was not me. The letter continues:

I wish to inform you that in more than 30 years of dealing with all branches of the Public Service and private enterprise, I have never before met such courtesy and such helpful service.

After the experiences of some years ago when it was commonly the view around Canberra that the only people who took on the job of vehicle inspectors were those who hated everybody and wished to embarrass or provoke as many people as possible, it came as more than a simple surprise to be treated with the friendly courteous helpful demeanour of these two gentlemen.

I congratulate you on obtaining their services.

Mr Speaker, the day-to-day workload at Dickson is one of the highest public contact loads in the ACT Public Service. There are more than half a million phone, mail and counter transactions a year, 40,000 vehicle inspections a year, 50,000 random inspections a year - we talked about these earlier tonight - and more than 10,000 licence tests a year; and EFTPOS has recently been introduced, without a hitch, further improving the service. Mr Speaker, I take this opportunity to say "well done and thank you" to motor registry staff and to give a real perspective to the occasional criticisms about queues and registration reminders.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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