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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (8 December) . . Page.. 3202 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Instead, Mr Speaker, we got something quite different. Instead, we got a report which is not transparent, where assumptions about efficiency and future value are based on secret documents. We have a report whose recommendations concentrate almost exclusively on sale and which dismisses the wider implications by claiming that they are too hard - for example, the economic impact of the sale on the Territory - or are covered by regulatory frameworks which have failed everywhere else in the world. That is the report we have got.

This Government has talked about being open and accountable. This Government has talked about all the evidence being there. The ABN AMRO report makes assumptions about the efficiencies that can accrue to ACTEW through privatisation. It makes those assumptions based on a report which is called the UMS report. This is the document, Mr Speaker, that ABN AMRO themselves use to justify the potential for efficiency gains if ACTEW is privatised. This report is not available to this Assembly.

Mr Stanhope: It is a secret.

MR CORBELL: It is a secret report. It has not been released by the Government or by ACTEW. We are asked to assume on faith that what ABN AMRO say in the report is accurate. We are asked to trust the Government. After their behaviour in relation to the election and after the election - remember that?: "We don't have any plans" - how can we trust them now? How can we trust a report where one of the underpinning parts of it in relation to efficiencies that can be gained through privatisation is secret and cannot be revealed even to the members of this place who will be asked to make this most important decision? What disdain and arrogance are displayed by this Government when they do something like that!

The Government, following the release of the ABN AMRO report, began their campaign of scare tactics. As I said at the beginning of this debate, they were scare tactics based on the superannuation liability, not based on the benefits of privatisation. They know, Mr Speaker, that the issue of privatisation is deeply unpopular in this electorate and they know that the evidence that privatisation leads to a better standard of service is very unclear. Studies internationally and in Australia have highlighted the fact that it is not the ownership model that affects the efficiency of an organisation; it is the way the organisation is managed. (Extension of time granted)

I cite as a source for that not some left-wing think tank that the Government might choose to deride, if that is the way they want to portray it, but a very credible source, the Industry Commission. The Industry Commission said a few years ago that the evidence showed that it was not whether an organisation was privately or publicly owned that made the difference on whether it could be run efficiently and effectively. Instead, it was the way that the organisation was managed. It was the way that it was managed, not the way that it was owned. What does that say about the arguments on the other side of the house in relation to privatisation? Again and again we have heard in this place the Government say that privatisation will lead to greater efficiencies. ABN AMRO used that argument to justify privatisation. They say that privatisation must occur because there will be greater efficiencies in the organisation, we will have a more effective organisation.

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