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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2693 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

I hear concerns expressed by some that this process will in some way undermine the freedom of governments to provide basic services in the way that best serves the public interest. However, as I have stated, on the balance of evidence, this fear is unjustified. Nevertheless, the government has heard the Assembly's concerns and will ensure that the issue is brought to the attention of the incoming government after the October election.

MS TUCKER: I seek leave to respond to Mr Smyth's statement on GATS.

Leave granted.

MS TUCKER: I want to put my position on the record now because I may not have another opportunity to do so-I note that Mr Moore did something similar this morning-as we are running out of time. I was hoping to have a volume of analysis and argument to go through. It would have been impossible for me to respond to a detailed response from the government on this very important issue; but, as the response is of only a few pages and most of it is about motherhood statements, I want to put on the record that it is a totally inadequate response to a very complex issue which, arguably, is going to have very significant impacts on local governments in developed and developing countries all round the world.

Where governments have taken the trouble to look at the issue in detail and provide some kind of thoughtful analysis, as happened in some of the provinces of Canada, British Columbia in particular, we can see that this issue is not as simple as the Liberal government here paints it. Clearly, this is about as good as we ever got from Mrs Carnell. We have very broad statements about liberalised trade being good for everybody and very little more. It has been said that we will be able to export our services. No analysis has been conducted of what it means for our ability to set standards for our own service provision capacity as they may be portrayed as barriers to trade by world trade rules.

What will be the impact of world trade rules on our ability to govern with the interests of our local community in mind? The response is absolutely pathetic and just supports the points I made when I asked for a response that this government does not care and has not done the work.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services): I seek leave to make a very brief statement

Leave granted.

MR MOORE: I am flabbergasted by the Greens' attitude to this matter. It is quite clear that what has happened is that they have been conned and caught up in the hype and the misinformation put out in the US, particularly by the teamsters union, which is busily protecting the jobs of its own workers. You can understand that coming from them, but I would have thought that the Greens, who like to take a global view of things, would recognise that the protection of those jobs in the US and Canada is at the price of incredible grinding poverty in the Third World. It is time you looked at that, Ms Tucker.

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