Page 4101 - Week 13 - Thursday, 6 December 2007
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guidance from the shareholders, conflicts of interest and some dodgy dealings—may well scare away the most eager risk-takers. I hope the sale will proceed. I thought I heard that there was a prospective buyer, which is good, but I think the sorry saga is an indictment of the government’s whole behaviour towards Rhodium. There did not appear to be too much direction; in fact, I think the shareholders in the past often had different views on exactly what should occur.
We have heard that, with some guidance from the shareholders, Rhodium could have built a business founded on good governance policies and procedures and open accountability. Unfortunately, there were a significant number of problems and a lack of guidance, so we have the mess which the public accounts committee is now looking into. It is also a very good rule of thumb to show that governments should not get involved in commercial activities, and especially not this one.
So the government needs more time to sell Rhodium. I certainly hope the Chief Minister will indicate that this is enough time, and hopefully we will see the end of this saga in terms of a sale in this six-month period. The opposition is happy to support the extension of time in the circumstances.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.00): The Greens will be supporting this bill. We note that the public accounts committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the Auditor-General’s report and that there are certainly issues to be looked at. It makes a lot of sense that we approve a six-month extension. The public accounts committee recently approved a six-month extension for the appointment of a couple of board members, and this legislation logically goes along with that.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Minister for the Environment, Water and Climate Change, Minister for the Arts) (5.01), in reply: I would like to make a few concluding remarks. As members know, I tabled this bill recently. The main purpose of the bill, as the Leader of the Opposition has explained, is to extend the default commencement date of the Territory-owned Corporations Amendment Act by six months, to 20 June 2008.
The Territory-owned Corporations Act requires that shares of all territory-owned corporations, including Rhodium Asset Solutions, be held by an ACT government minister. Therefore, in order for the shares to be sold, Rhodium needs to be excluded from the application of the act by removing the name of the company from schedule 1.
As members would recall, the Territory-owned Corporations Amendment Act was passed in the Assembly in December last year. The act provided for Rhodium Asset Solutions to be removed from schedule 1 on a date to be fixed by the minister or 12 months after the date of notification. This was intended to remove any bidder uncertainty about when the sale could proceed by allowing the Treasurer to notify the commencement date after the sale negotiations had been completed.
It was originally expected that the sale would have been completed well before now. After a two-stage procurement process, a preferred respondent has been selected. However, as I informed the Assembly in my presentation speech, the sale has been
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