Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2751 ..

MR BERRY (8.51): My contribution will be brief. This legislation has been a long time in gestation and a lot of work has gone into it. There are specific amendments which prohibit the government from disposing of its main undertakings in this legislation by way of the authority. Of course, that can always be changed if you happen to have nine votes in this place. The issue here is whether or not matters can be done at executive level rather than with the support of this parliament.

Mr Speaker, "dispose of any of its main undertakings" is similar language to that used in the Territory Owned Corporations Act in relation to the acquisition and disposal of subsidiaries and undertakings. That sort of language is used in section 16 of the Territory Owned Corporations Act in relation to the disposal of its main undertakings. But there is another provision. That is to be deleted by amendments which are going to be moved by Mr Quinlan. Section 16 (4) of the Territory Owned Corporations Act says that a territory owned corporation or a subsidiary shall not dispose of any of its main undertakings, and so on, unless the Legislative Assembly, by resolution, has approved of the disposal.

Mr Speaker, that particular provision is relevant to what is going on out at the Williamsdale quarry because a significant asset has been disposed of without the approval of the Assembly, and I am advised that that is unlawful. Happily, that provision has been removed from this legislation, which would prevent a treasurer or a minister from taking this sort of action at all. It would be unlawful to do it. We have a somewhat shadowy history when it comes to unlawful undertakings in this place. We have the unlawful expenditure at the Bruce Stadium in our background, which would be of some embarrassment to the government. It certainly was a headline-grabbing mistake by the government which will go down in history as one of the hallmarks of a Liberal government in the ACT-unlawful spending of taxpayers' money.

I have some concern about other similarities to the Territory Owned Corporations Act which are not the subject of a requirement to report to this Assembly. This only came up in recent times because only in recent days have I raised this question with Mr Humphries. So far he has refused to give me an answer in relation to the matter. I raised the question of the disposal. Subsection 16 (1) of the Territory Owned Corporations Act says:

A Territory owned corporation or a subsidiary shall not, without the prior written consent of the voting shareholders-

... ... ....

(d) acquire, dispose of, mortgage, or give security over, a significant asset, or give a charge over the whole or a significant part of its undertaking or assets.

Subsection (3) says that where consent has been given in relation to a range of matters mentioned in that subsection it has to be brought to the attention of this Assembly, but not subsection 16 (1) (d) which relates to the giving of security over a significant asset. I have asked Mr Humphries questions about that and so far he has been avoiding bringing an answer to the Assembly in relation to it. I can understand why he does not want to talk about what is going on at the Williamsdale quarry because it is a significant embarrassment to the government.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .