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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 1034 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Stanhope's motion has another, perhaps even more important element. That is his request for the government to demonstrate its commitment to the provision of quality services to the residents of the ACT. The only difficulty I have at this point is where I should start with what could be a very extensive catalogue of the government's action in respect of that subject and which of the manifold achievements across all portfolio areas warrant particular attention in the limited time available in today's debate.

In my own portfolio areas, the government's commitment can be seen in our actions to do a number of things: first of all, creating a framework to increase the social capital of the ACT; secondly, improving community participation in the development of the government's budget to ensure the government has active involvement by the population of the ACT in the services we deliver and programs that the community values. The creation of Canberra Connect to increase the accessibility of many government services and make it easier for residents to deal with government agencies is another demonstration of the desire to improve access to those services.

It was only last November that the Assembly considered a final package of bills which were put forward to reform the regulation of utilities in the ACT. The government invested significant resources in that project, as did many community groups. That project is just one example of the commitment made by the government to increase and improve the range of services residents of the ACT enjoy.

Obviously a body like Totalcare has experienced problems in recent days as the government has tested its capacity to deliver services in an effective way by inviting the opening of tenders for some of the services Totalcare provides or has provided. There has been criticism in particular by Mr Stanhope, I assume, of the decision to open ACT Housing maintenance to competitive tender. He has certainly been very critical of the outcome of that. I do not think he has been critical of the fact that in a fair and open tender Totalcare was unsuccessful. I assume his comments relate to the fact that maintenance was opened up to competition in the first place. If I am not right about that, I am happy for him to put the record straight.

It is part of the process of ensuring that the ACT community has high-quality services that Totalcare be tested from time to time in various ways. Establishing whether there are better, more effective ways of providing those services by somebody else is one such example. We would not face the problem of testing the quality of service of Totalcare or any other agency of government if we did not on occasions invite other bodies to compete for their work. In other words, if we did not ask the question, we would not get an answer we did not like.

We cannot honestly say to the ACT community that we are delivering good value services unless we test that proposition from time to time. Allowing others working in the same field to offer better or more effective services in those fields is a way of ensuring that we provide high-quality services.

If the work had not been put out to competitive tender, the ACT community and ACT Housing tenants in particular would have been denied the opportunity to have access to enhanced services and enhanced value for money, which the successful tenderers have offered. That is not my assessment; that is the assessment of the tender board. The

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