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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (30 November) . . Page.. 3486 ..
MR HARGREAVES (continuing):
selling it. The government's procrastination in publishing this report has led to owners being unable to sell their plates.
Mr Humphries: So we are going too slow?
MR HARGREAVES: I hear the interjection from the Chief Minister: "So now the government is too slow?" The government issued the report in March 2000-to whom nobody knows, because it was not released to the public until mid-November. Mid-November was when the people affected by it saw it or became aware of it.
Mr Humphries: We will be going too fast by next week, don't worry.
MR HARGREAVES: If they are congratulating themselves on that, Mr Speaker, let the record show it. I do not think there is anything to congratulate anybody about. The government's procrastination in publishing this report has led to owners being unable to sell their plates, plates being devalued and superannuation being lost. This inept government could not make a decision or release the report on time. If it had finished the report in March 2000, you have to ask yourself why it did not issue the report to the hire car industry in March 2000. Nobody knows.
Sixteen months later the report has been released, and the government insists on changes within the next month. Mr Smyth is giving the hire car industry approximately one month to read about, digest and adjust to the changes he wants put in place. It is all right for Mr Smyth, who has had several months to read this report, but to give the industry one month to adapt to the changes is unacceptable. If anything, it makes them suspicious. Why has the hire car industry not been consulted on these changes? These changes the government is enforcing will directly affect the earning capacity of owners and lessees, giving them little time to react and prepare.
The report recommends compensation, but the government dismisses compensation. The report says:
If the transferable perpetual licences are replaced with say, annual licences that are readily available, the original licence value will in fact be worth nil.
Despite this comment in the report, the minister still refuses to compensate the hire car industry. Obviously the minister has taken out of the report the bits that cost him nothing but picks up those that make him money. How convenient is that? The report goes on to say:
A policy change may be deemed inequitable if it imposes substantial uncompensated losses on relatively few individuals, even though the change may bring about net benefits to the wider community. A failure to compensate for major policy changes can undermine investor confidence. It may also lead to intensified efforts by those with vested interests to seek to have reforms stopped.
Hence why we are here today. This government is too stubborn to admit that more time and consultation are needed. This government does not believe that these changes will be to the detriment of existing hire car operators. This government does not believe that these changes will be to the detriment of existing hire car operators. The review
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