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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 1661 ..

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Mr Berry! Mr Quinlan has the call.

MR QUINLAN: Mr Corbell and I were given a briefing by the Chief Minister at which a piece of paper was produced with some numbers on it which obviously did not stack up. The continuity of the numbers brought them into question immediately. The profitability of the TAB obviously had been somewhat diminished by items that, under any reasonable accounting standards, would have been below the line and not taken into account in assessing the operating viability of the place.

I asked some questions about claims that were made by the Chief Minister in this place. There was some outrage that I was breaching confidentiality and that I was referring to a piece of paper. I was not referring to the piece of paper at all. I was referring to the specific claims that the Chief Minister had made. It turns out that that piece of paper was already in the hands of the media. In the end, to have the piece of paper tabled, I had to table it myself because, when asked, the Chief Minister tabled another bit of paper. I thought at the time, "There has to be an agenda here". There was a certain element of propaganda in the whole process.

Since that time not much has happened to reassure me that that process is not continuing. This particular report that we have here contains largely regurgitated material and it is flawed. It includes some models in here and, all other things being equal, somehow values ACTTAB at $35m at the bottom of the range and possibly up to in excess of $40m. According to all the other assumptions, that would give the purchaser of ACTTAB about 4.5 per cent return on capital. That is not a really good deal.

Ms Carnell: If they did not grow the business.

MR QUINLAN: The model does not include growing the business.

Ms Carnell: But the model is not the basis upon which someone would buy it.

MR QUINLAN: Well, the valuation then that derived from that model does not include that variable. The report then starts to refer to risk analysis and all of a sudden gears down to $14m fairly promptly. I wonder whether there is something we do not know. As Mr Kaine mentioned earlier, because everything comes up with a pretty low value, to continue to keep the argument afloat that ACTTAB should be sold the report starts to question the amount of money that flows to the racing industry from the TAB. An amount of money that was increased with great fanfare in January, immediately prior to the 1998 election - in fact it was a half of one per cent increase, from 4 per cent to 4.5 per cent - was claimed by the Chief Minister to be capable of creating 70 additional jobs. That claim was accredited to the Chief Minister immediately before the election. So if half a per cent is 70 jobs, we are talking of a lot of jobs for a viable industry here. If this sale depends upon reducing the flow of funds to the racing industry, on those maths there must be a lot of jobs under threat.

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