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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2746 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

condone any of it. But, Totalcare is a corporation. It is not an authority, and there is a difference.

Mr Osborne: There is a lot of difference.

MR HARGREAVES: I was surprised that Mr Osborne does not know the difference between a statutory authority and a territory-owned corporation, but perhaps it is an ignorance borne out of political expedience, Mr Speaker.

Mr Osborne: Explain the difference to me.

MR HARGREAVES: I will explain the difference. One of the things that Mr Osborne did was put the frights up all of the ACTION bus drivers and their families by saying, "Your job is going to go." As Ms Tucker pointed out, under the current regime, where ACTION is a division or a subset of the Department of Urban Services, the biggest fright they got was when the minister advertised a tender for the private sector to run the system.

The current system is dangerous. If you do not think it is dangerous, come with me to the Tuggeranong depot and talk to the mechanics there. I will have to bring along the mechanics who no longer work there. Fourty per cent of them disappeared overnight.

Mr Osborne: There will be even less soon.

MR HARGREAVES: Let's talk about the privatisation of CityScape, Mr Osborne. CityScape is not an authority. It is not a corporation. It is a subset of the Department of Urban Services and it has been shrunk to a mere freckle of its former self. Why do you think that is? Because its status as a subsection is dangerous. We all know it.

Probably the only thing that we and Mr Osborne will agree on in this instance is that the term "territory owned corporation" is code for "for sale". If you give something corporation status that means that you set it up in such a way that it is an entire business operation created to provide a dividend back to the government and therefore it is a good entity to flog off. That is why we opposed the sale of half of Actew to AGL. We will oppose the privatisation of ACTION to our dying breath. Mr Osborne can hold up as many things as he likes, but his interpretations are political expediency and nothing else. He says he is disappointed in the Labor Party. Well, quite frankly, I do not care.

People talk about the guarantee from this government of putting money into ACTION. What makes you think for a moment, Mr Speaker, that the government cannot do what they like right now under the existing system? Of course they can. Under a corporation status they need give nothing and say, "You are on your own, Jackson."

Mr Speaker, when it comes to the ACTION set-up, we need to distinguish between that which is community service obligation and that which is an optional public transport system. We can do that within an authority. Mr Osborne is just playing silly political games. We want, as much as the government wants, and indeed Mr Osborne wants, to have ACTION functioning as a good public transport system.

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