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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 2987 ..

MR QUINLAN: I ask a supplementary question. Since Mr Humphries has not read the article, I inform him that Mr Urban also included in the article an opinion that it was virtually impracticable to undo things and put them back the way they were. I also communicate to the Treasurer that the FPAC, after talking to the officers who were in charge of putting this joint venture together, who also share the opinion that it is probably virtually impossible to regain assets and has stated so-

MR SPEAKER: Is this a question?

MR QUINLAN: Are you aware, Treasurer, officers directly involved in the creation of this joint venture had the same opinion as Mr Urban-that it would be impracticable to undo the joint venture once it had been created? Might I add a second question? In light of Mr Kaine's question, what action has the government taken to silence this scurrilously independent and objective commentary?

MR HUMPHRIES: I do not recall any officer telling me that this arrangement was going to be impossible to unscramble. There is no doubt, however, that it would be most unlikely to be unscrambled, simply because it is an arrangement which foresees a long-term partnership which, despite tough negotiations, is based on a very generous measure of trust and confidence between the two sides, one which I think shows every sign of enduring for a long period of time. That is perhaps a brave prediction but one which I think is sustainable, given the reaction of many people in the business sector around Australia to this announcement.

I am aware that this general idea of putting public entities into a market situation is being pursued by governments around Australia, including Labor governments. You are so opposed to privatisation, Mr Quinlan, but I remind you of what your own party has done all over Australia with respect to the privatisation of assets. I mention Qantas, the TAB, the Commonwealth Bank-and the list goes on and on. They were not privatised by Liberal governments, I can assure you.

In those circumstances, I am convinced that this relatively innovative model in the ACT will be copied in other parts of Australian. It will be seen as a way of addressing the community's concerns about ownership and risk.

You people are setting yourselves up as critics of this proposal, but I predict that in the future this will be seen more and more as a viable way of dealing with those very issues of ownership and of risk. I think we will come back to this place some years from now and be able to hold up further examples of where this has happened, particularly under Labor governments, which are sensitive on that ownership question, and we will see how much this model has been taken on.

Mr Quinlan said there was no valuation of the assets that were brought forward.

Mr Quinlan: No, I did not.

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