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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2091 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Well, it was not necessary when we did not have a fee, but it is now that we do not. It is a $40,000 fence and it strikes me as extraordinary that all of a sudden we need a fence when we have not got a fee. I think it is more to do with contracts and contractors that have signed up to put the fence in than much else.

Of course, if the truth is known, do we own the fence? Is it stored away somewhere? Is it our black fence? Or is it somebody else's black fence that we hire every now and then or every Floriade? Are we committed to hiring it at every Floriade? That is an interesting question, but it is going to cost us $40,000 or whatever to fence Floriade for security purposes now, according to the government, not to keep the non-paying people out, because nobody has to pay, but because we need a fence.

Interestingly, the committee which I chaired, and which included Mr Osborne, recommended that the government do away with the fees a couple of years ago, on my recollection, and the government said it was a terrible report, a new low in the Assembly. We recommended the abolition of the Floriade fee, a new low, and all of a sudden it's a good idea. Well, I think it is a good idea, but we should never have got to the position that we find ourselves in at this point.

Mr Speaker, CTEC have been surrounded by controversy for the life of this government, in effect. They have been associated with much hoopla and the old bread and circuses stuff which has been put on by this government. I felt a bit of sympathy for CTEC at one stage when they were forced to take on the Feel the Power campaign. I remember examining them at the Estimates Committee. I remember one of the officials saying that they had adopted it. He seemed to be saying it through gritted teeth, because they had their own little slogan which seemed to be working okay for them around the region, but they were stuck with this Feel the Power campaign. I suspect they had to pay the licence fees that went with the Feel the Power campaign.

You know, that was an amazingly successful strategy. Even the Canberra Times were captured by it briefly. It was on the front page of the Canberra Times for a few editions, but they sensed the smell of it pretty quickly, as they do, and it disappeared pretty quickly.

Then there was that flurry about Feel the Power signs that we were going to see on everybody's car. They were so popular that you couldn't make enough of them. Everybody wanted a Feel the Power plate. Well, you can search a car park now and you will not find one. I have not seen one for years. They have just disappeared off the radar. Why? Because it was a dumb idea. It was a second-hand slogan which we signed up to in the face of some glitzy media presentation which mesmerised these people opposite.

If you want to make a quid, come and do business with this government. It's easy pickings. In fact, I was discussing with my staff member something innovative that we could do before the next election which would find some support out there in the community. We thought the best thing we could do is to introduce a piece of legislation which kept the executive away from pens so that they cannot sign any more contracts. Just keep the pens right away from them, because every time they get their hands on one and there is a contract about, we get into trouble and somebody else is left with the problem of fixing it up. That's the story of this government-the hospital implosion, the futsal slab and so on.

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