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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (10 May) . . Page.. 1405 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

of that risk by insuring against that occurrence. It is a lot like a bookie who offloads some of the risk of his bets. Will Mr Stanhope then be asking ITC's insurers for copies of their contracts with other insurers?

Some questions have been raised as to why, if ITC was required to take out an insurance policy naming both ITC and the companies associated with the venues in Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong as the beneficiaries, it should not be released. To put it in simple terms, many of us would have insurance policies on ourselves that name one or more of our families as the beneficiaries. Those persons are not a signatory to those policies.

Ms Carnell: Or a party to them.

MR SMYTH: As the Chief Minister says, they are not even a party to them. There is no requirement for them even to know that they exist. However, they still reap the financial returns if something happens to one of us. Bruce Stadium is in the same situation. Just because it is named in the contract as one of the beneficiaries, that does not mean it had anything to do with the taking out of the policy. Bruce Stadium had no control over which insurance company ITC used or whether ITC used more than one company to cover its obligations. ITC was legally obliged to fulfil its obligations under a legally binding contract, and that, Mr Speaker, as we all know, has occurred.

Mr Stanhope has also made it publicly known that he has put in a freedom of information request for all documents relating to the government's dealings with Impulse Airlines. This is another example of him showing that he has no understanding of how business works. During negotiations with Impulse, the airline rightly gave the government negotiators access to information about their business, information which is highly sensitive. That information included such things as when Impulse might expect to begin new operating routes, what their price structures on those routes might be, how much Impulse would be paying employees and so on-lots of information vital to the success of Impulse.

That information is also important to Impulse's competitors and possibly trade unions but nobody else. If that information is made public, Qantas and Ansett will be given an enormous advantage, an advantage they will not have to give back to Impulse. So we may expose Impulse to economic danger, economic tragedy. If one of the other airlines used that information to begin operating a route before Impulse, at the same or a lower price, the new Canberra-based airline's competitive advantage would simply be lost. If another airline wanted a new engineer, they could poach one from Impulse by simply offering higher wages or better conditions.

When lower prices or better wages occur because there is fair competition, that is a good thing. But when one company is given an unfair advantage over another because of nothing more than a cheap political stunt, that is a betrayal of fair play, and it is a betrayal of good business practice. Clearly, this would put Impulse at a distinct disadvantage compared with its competitors and could put its business in Canberra at serious risk. This is a business that Access Economics predicts will create enormous benefits not just for Canberra but for the entire region.

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