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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 7 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 2209 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

For the life of me, I just cannot understand why they need to be put in this position at all. I have heard the arguments that have been put here today and I, like Mr Kaine and others here, remain unconvinced about it. I am grateful for the correspondence that I have had through the email system and other means from many people who work within the group. I am grateful to the unions for seeing me about it some weeks ago, which enabled me to have a think about it. I must say that I toyed with the idea of saying, "If they want it and they started it, who am I to stand in their way?". But I do not believe that that is the case. I do not believe that the impetus for the move stemmed from these guys. I believe that the concept, the germ of the idea, was put to them by management, who said, "If you want to help us out a bit here, if you want to look after your future and things like that, then this is a good way to go". I must say that, in terms of whether you go by the noose or by the guillotine, it certainly is a good way to go. When the government of the day does not want a particular activity it is usually the case that it just cans it and that is the end of it, you are out on the street. If you have to take this sort of rather draconian measure, this is a good way of giving people an opportunity to have another life after that. But I keep coming back to the point: Why on earth are we doing it? It is not broke; so, why on earth do we need to fix it? Why have the Government themselves and the ACTEW management not had faith in these guys and said, "Let us make it work better. You can do it."? It is pretty obvious to me that they can. We talk about them having control of their own destinies. I am sorry about that piece of rhetoric; it does not wash with me, I am afraid. You have control of your own fate when you are put out there, but you do not have control of your destiny. The destiny that you have is created by the environment into which you are being thrust.

Mr Rugendyke: Your are a pessimist. Have faith in them.

MR HARGREAVES: I am afraid that I have to say that. If that is the way it comes across, then I make no apology for it, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. I believe that the environment out there for small business is not a good one, and I sheet that responsibility home to the bunch of conservatives who are currently running the town.

There is a two-way responsibility here for these people who want to take on their own business. Let me underscore this by saying that at the end of the day when the numbers have dropped and that is achieved, I sincerely wish them all the very best and hope that they actually make it and set some bars on the high jump for people in this part of the industry. I sincerely wish them all the very best. I am sure that my colleagues will support me in saying that, if there is anything our party can do to assist them in that process, we will be only too pleased to help them. That is an offer of assistance which I hope that they will accept with the good faith in which it is offered.

One of the things that we forget about when we start chipping away at instrumentalities such as ACTEW and ACTTAB - we can take it in one hit, like the attempt on ACTTAB; we can take it in big bits, like the contracting out of the management of ACTION; or we can take it in small chunks, which is what we are talking about here, and this is having a nibbling-away effect on the whole of ACTEW - is that what happens with a lot of these instrumentalities is that they actually make a quid. They do not make megabucks; let us be quite fair about that. They do not make huge money; but they make more than their own salaries, they make more than their own operating costs and they contribute a small

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