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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3573 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

One thing that is most interesting here is that Mr Berry has used this issue to say that these Bills are about privatisation. That shows again that Mr Berry does not understand what he is talking about. The competition principles agreement explicitly states in subclause (5) - and I think Mr Berry should listen to this, too:

This agreement is neutral with respect to the nature and form of ownership of business enterprises. It is not intended to promote public or private ownership.

It is quite explicit that the national competition policy is not about ownership at all. The fact is that this shows once again that Mr Berry has not read the documents. He has gone off half-cocked in a political direction without having a clue as to what he is talking about. He did not even realise that Ms Follett, his Chief Minister, had signed virtually all of the agreements and had committed the ACT to the passage of legislation in these areas. He did not realise that this is not about privatisation, and it cannot be, as that is spelt out in the competition policy. He certainly did not realise, obviously, that this was about creating a fairer market, one in which publicly-owned businesses will not be in the position of being subject to unfair competitive advantages or disadvantages. We are already seeing the benefits of national competition policy - something that we supported in opposition and something that was entered into by the previous Government. For the life of me, I do not understand what Mr Berry is talking about.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister's time has expired.

MS TUCKER (5.11): Of course, the Greens are very interested in this debate today. This is not a sudden interest for us; it is an issue that has concerned us for some time. As members will no doubt recall, we first raised the issue in a substantial way in 1995, when I moved for a select committee into competition policy in the ACT. At the time, we were told that it was too late for any discussion of competition policy because the agreements had all been signed - as Mrs Carnell says, by the former Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett. As we all know, the Hilmer reforms, which are the basis for all these reforms, were initiated by the former Commonwealth Labor Government.

I have spoken at length in the past about my concerns with all these reforms, especially at the time when we debated the Competition Policy Reform Bill; but I will repeat a few of the points in the context of today's debate. As I have mentioned, we did initiate a select committee. I argued then that the Competition Policy Reform Bill was legislation with implications which had not been debated sufficiently either within the Legislative Assembly or in the wider community. Mrs Carnell just stated that these things had been well researched and thought through; but that has not been my experience or the experience of the community. I notice that Mrs Carnell has actually instigated further work with various community organisations to look at some of these implications and try to find out what is the downside of them. So, I do not think the work was sufficiently done before it was introduced.

I have argued consistently that, in the name of economic efficiency, this legislation had the potential to severely curtail State, Territory and local government capacity to promote and protect social justice, consumer and environmental objectives. As I said in 1995, the 17 people in this Assembly are elected to represent the interests of the ACT.

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