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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (29 October) . . Page.. 2462 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, it is quite possible, were we a government prone to want to dither over such matters, to construct a scenario where we never had to make a decision on this matter. There are, I have to say to Ms Tucker, some very attractive angles in not making a decision on this matter, because, as I said this morning, I do not pretend that a decision of this kind is a passport to popularity. But, Mr Speaker, I will say this to Ms Tucker once again, as I have said many times before: We have put on the table a proposal and a timetable around that proposal because we believe that the problem facing the ACT warrants that degree of urgency; not because we have made up in our own heads some imminent problem, some imminent deadline, but because we have been told by among the best possible consultants in this field that that is the fact.

I come back to what I said the other day. Governments have been known to fall on ignoring advice of that kind of a much less serious nature. If the setting were reversed and there was some urgent advice, for example, about an imminent environmental crisis and we chose to ignore the advice of that kind that was coming through from very reliable expert sources, we would be condemned by, among other people, Ms Tucker for ignoring the evidence coming forward in that way. We are not going to do that, Mr Speaker. The advice has been extensive, expensive and, I think, fairly comprehensive.

Mr Corbell: And flawed.

MR HUMPHRIES: Those opposite have had to say that the advice is flawed because their position all along has been that privatisation is wrong. It follows that they have to find some way of being able to say that these pre-eminent experts in this field, the largest merchant bank in the world, as I understand it, somehow do not have the wherewithal to put together a comprehensive and accurate report. Those opposite have to say it, otherwise they are left in the position of saying, "The evidence is this, but we are going to say, notwithstanding it, that".

Mr Speaker, we do not have the luxury of resorting to that little intellectual device. We have the responsibility of offering good government to this Territory as best we can perceive it. That imposes on us, I believe, an obligation to act where the public interest demands. Mr Speaker, we propose to do so. We have set out a timetable for that. We have allowed for what I think is reasonable public discussion and Assembly information-gathering over that period of time and we will propose to the Assembly in December that a decision be made on that matter.

MS TUCKER: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I take that to be a no to my question. Was that a no?

Mr Humphries: Yes, I did say no, Ms Tucker.

MS TUCKER: Okay. You have just said that you believe that you have a responsibility to have good government. I am just curious to know how you can actually fill that responsibility when you are reluctant to look at the impacts on consumer business and employee objectives. How do you reconcile that with your statement about endless information and a bottomless well? Are there any factors that you believe have not been adequately addressed in the reviews that you have undertaken to this point?

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