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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 200 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

Since then I have put questions on notice to the Treasurer seeking the necessary information on public and private contracts for each of the three business segments. The Treasurer has responded that this information could not be supplied in total because it is commercial-in-confidence-that the data would disclose details of Totalcare's margins for each of its composite businesses and that Totalcare would be disadvantaged if competitors had access to this cost profiling.

In this instance, where the magnitude of losses to the taxpayers is substantial and the information in the annual report separating ACT government revenue from other revenue is so scarce, I cannot be satisfied with this excuse for withholding the information. All of the questions that I have raised about how money is being spent within Totalcare and cross-subsidisation of the private sector could be answered by saying that there is nothing wrong going on, that public money is being spent only on public contracts.

I would be happy to hear that answer, but without this information we cannot be sure and hiding behind the commercial-in-confidence curtains means that we can never be sure. At a point in time when we are having massive debates, as we had yesterday and I am sure they will go on, about exactly what is the financial position of the territory, whether or not money is being spent in the way that it should, we need to know what is happening in Totalcare, whether or not it is profitable and whether or not cross-subsidisation is going on.

I call for the Assembly's support for full disclosure of the current situation regarding cross-subsidies within the Totalcare corporation. The argument that costs from the last financial year will tip off competitors is difficult to sustain when it is clear that Totalcare is continuing its efforts to restructure the organisation and it appears that the cost base from year to year changes substantially.

I want this Assembly to be satisfied that Totalcare's decision to keep performing private sector contracts is financially sound. If it is financially sound, then it will continue and we can look at addressing the losses in Totalcare in other ways. But if it is not, if the information provided shows that it is not financially sound, then there is a duty on the government to direct Totalcare to withdraw from this area and for the money to be better spent in services across the ACT that are in desperate need of money.

I do hope that the Assembly will see the importance of this debate and choose to support this call for full disclosure from the government of the financial accountability of Totalcare.

MR CORNWELL (5.21): Mr Speaker, with one small amendment which my colleague Mr Smyth will be moving, the opposition will be supporting Ms Dundas' motion, which is seeking simple information so that the Assembly can establish for itself just where Totalcare's financial position might be at in a little more detail than the details of aggregate revenue, for example, earned by ACT government clients and non-government clients provided in the statement of corporate intent. There would appear to be no reason why this more detailed data should not be provided in the annual report, and there is no reason why it should not be provided in the statement of financial performance, nor indeed in notes 1 or 32 of the latest annual report.

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