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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3541 ..

MS DUNDAS (4.36): Last November I supported the motion that the Treasurer has just mentioned sanctioning the return of each of Totalcare’s functions to the appropriate ACT government departments. I appreciated that this change could eliminate the costs of a separate board, a CEO and some senior management positions. Having said that, I am also willing to support today’s motion because I believe that it is legally necessary to have a separate corporation in order to lease vehicles for ACT government purposes. That argument was put quite strongly during the estimates process. However, I hope that this new corporation will not exhibit the problems of its predecessor. I was particularly concerned about the use of public funds in relation to private contracts, with private competitors being undercut.

The government obviously does not have to utilise a leasing structure for the vehicles it uses exclusively for government purposes. However, I appreciate that there is benefit in being able to offer ACT government staff leased vehicles as part of their salary package, as tax concessions can make this fringe benefit of greater value to the employee than the cost to the ACT government. But it is not necessarily part of its core business to lease vehicles to the Commonwealth government and private clients, although I understand that the Treasurer has declared that these private and federal government fleet services should be retained because they are currently returning a profit.

Unlike the linen business, I do not question the profitability of the fleet business. However, I am aware that we ended up with a corporation that was haemorrhaging public money because some government minds decided that there was a buck in a whole lot of businesses that turned out to be not as profitable as expected. I guess this time we are just going to have to wait and see if the numbers are as solid as predicted.

I was informed that the government will not accept as high a level of the financial risk in private contractual arrangements as Totalcare may have done as a commercial corporate entity. But there is no guarantee that the government will not continue to lose money on private contracts, including fleet contracts, so I cannot believe that there is a nil risk attached to this venture.

The concern about this proposal to establish a new corporation for fleet services is that financial reporting will be as opaque as it was under Totalcare. The public was not able to access full financial information in relation to Totalcare because it was apparently commercial-in-confidence. I would be extremely concerned if this new corporation used that same excuse to withhold information that we need to make a judgment about whether the income and costs are fairly distributed between the ACT government and non-ACT government portions of the business. ACT taxpayers need to be assured that their money is being spent appropriately.

I hope that this new business will be a financial success and that the Assembly will have access to information that satisfies those criteria. I reiterate my earlier statements in this place that the Assembly needs full information on government activities that affect the budget bottom line. This is one such example and I hope that the information will be forthcoming as the territory-owned corporation rolls on into the future.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming, and Acting Minister for Planning)

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