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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (6 December) . . Page.. 3783 ..
MR MOORE: We have warned him about the ramifications of legislation or motions, and they have come to pass. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would like to give a couple of examples as to why it goes beyond -
Ms Tucker: This is the man who made the amendments last night to the Gambling Act without me getting even to look at them.
MR MOORE: Just as you voted no then, Ms Tucker, I presume that you will follow the precautionary principle and vote no here as well.
Ms Tucker: I have had this motion -
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Ms Tucker! Minister, address your remarks to the chair.
MR MOORE: Let me give a couple of examples of how this may have an impact. We know that at the moment there is a tender out with regard to maintenance within Housing and, as I understand it, Totalcare is one of the tenderers. Mr Berry says that this motion will not affect it, but of course it will. Let us take two examples, if Totalcare wins and if Totalcare loses. If Totalcare loses there is no attempt to transfer any of those services to Totalcare. My understanding is that they are currently providing these services, so there would be an attempt to remove them. I do not think that is covered by the motion. If they were to win the tender we would have to transfer to Totalcare anything not done now by Totalcare. I am not privy to what exactly is in that tender. I know there is a tender going and it is about total asset management, but it is an issue for us.
Let me give another example about the hospital. There are a number of things that the hospital puts out to tender very regularly. At the moment I know that Totalcare does a great deal of work for the hospital. For example, the sterilisation of surgical equipment is done by Totalcare. The linen and the equipment that is used in operations is cleaned and washed by Totalcare. It may well be that we have another area of service in the hospital that we want to put out to tender. Tenders go out regularly. A range of tenders are being put out by a hospital business that spends more than $200 million a year, although that includes salaries as well, of course. There is quite a strong possibility that Totalcare will win. We would expect it to win a contract of this type. Having won that contract they would not be able to accept it unless through a motion of the Assembly. Of course, the people considering that tender would need to take such a motion into account. Mr Corbell put very clearly the intention of the motion, but I think the ramifications of the motion are much broader.
There is another interesting thing. The motion does not say the transfer of ACT government assets or services; it says the transfer of government assets.
Mr Corbell: What other government are we talking about? The United States government? For heaven's sake.
MR MOORE
: We may be talking about the federal government, or we may be talking about the New South Wales government, because this Assembly has charged Totalcare with becoming a business enterprise. As a business enterprise, we expect it to tender.
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