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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3508 ..

Mr Berry: I never appointed any.

MR HUMPHRIES: But your party did. You were collectively part of a government. You were responsible for the actions of your government. We think you should have been. I know there are some things you would not like to be responsible for - things like Mr Berry's VITAB decision. You would not want to be responsible for that. You would be saying, "Keep well away from that one. If we are paying overtime to our staff, we do not want to be responsible for what other members might be doing on that score either - no, no, no".

But, generally speaking, most governments operate - if I can give you some advice - on the basis that we collectively take responsibility for matters. You try collectively to share the burdens of government. We on this side of the house collectively support the Statutory Appointments Act and we support the extension in this case, because we intend to support Mr Moore's amendments. I simply express the same concerns that have been expressed by the Labor Party in the past - that we have to make sure that people have the opportunity not to be dissuaded from serving in public offices because of the process of scrutiny which is entailed in this Bill.

Amendments agreed to.

Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Debate resumed from 23 September 1997, on motion by Mrs Carnell:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR WHITECROSS (11.29): Mr Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Labor Opposition to indicate that we will be supporting this legislation. The effect of the legislation is to allow Territory-owned corporations to borrow money from the Territory, through the Territory taking advantage of its preferred status in the credit market to obtain funds at a cheaper rate than a Territory-owned corporation could in its own right. I am advised that the benefit of doing so does not accrue to the Territory-owned corporation because the savings will not be passed on to the corporation; they will be retained in the Central Financing Unit as additional revenue for the Territory to help pay for all the good things that the Territory would like to do. This legislation is, effectively, ensuring that a margin, which was indicated to me as being 0.2 per cent, will be profit for the Territory rather than profit for a private financial institution.

Mr Speaker, this legislation modifies the previous arrangements under which a Territory-owned corporation could raise funds on the market with the approval of the Treasurer or, alternatively, could raise funds through the Territory provided there was an appropriation to support the raising of funds by the Territory for the corporation.

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