Asset Sales

About this Item
Speakers - Egan The Hon Michael; Webster The Hon Robert
Business - Questions Without Notice

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

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ASSET SALES

The Hon. M. R. EGAN: My question is directed to the Minister for Planning and Minister for Energy. Is the Minister aware that because the Government has raided $872 million from Sydney Electricity in the past two years it has now been forced to put 25 of its properties up for sale? As the Government has now removed many of its own properties from the market because of the depressed state of the market, what will the Minister do to prevent the fire sale of these 25 properties?

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The Hon. R. J. WEBSTER: One of the unfortunate consequences of the Leader of the Opposition making his speech on the Budget immediately after my friend and colleague the Leader of the House is that he did not wait to see what his own leader had to say in the other place. Another problem is that the Opposition does not co-ordinate things properly between this House and the other place. The fact that the Leader of the Opposition made a long and turgid speech and regurgitated much of what he has said before, and got not one line printed in the media, is an indication of how out of touch he is. Had he watched the "7.30 Report" last night he would have seen his leader in a fair bit of trouble. His leader completely repudiated Labor Party policy on which he had gone to the last State election. The Hon. R. J. Carr said last night that he is in favour of privatisation, after telling everyone that the Labor Party in New South Wales is not in favour of privatisation. It is all right to privatise in Victoria or in the Commonwealth sphere, but not the State Bank of New South Wales. He had a conversion last night.

Another thing Mr Carr said was that he is in favour of asset sales. He chastised the Government on the one hand for supposedly having a fire sale of assets and then chastised it for not reaching its asset sales target. Those two criticisms are totally inconsistent with each other. On the one hand he has said he is in favour of asset sales and on the other hand he criticised the Government for having a fire sale of assets. In fact, the Government did not have a fire sale of assets and therefore did not reach the asset sales target. The Government could have sold the State Office Block but did not do so because it was not offered enough money for it. I will not tell the Leader of the Opposition what the media representatives on the sixth floor say about him, but they think that his leader in the other place is an economic idiot. Of course he is because he goes off half-cocked, he goes for the cheap shot and now he is complaining about what he is reported to have said. This morning he gave a couple of the senior journalists a serve because they did not write nice things about him in the press this morning.

The truth is that for the first time in New South Wales history we have a government that is honest about its finances. But the Leader of the Opposition in this place and the leader in the other place are dishonest about finances - or about the little they know about the subject. The truth is that Sydney Electricity was the greatest hollow log that existed in the State of New South Wales. My predecessor the Hon. Neil Pickard, who is now doing a wonderful job as Agent-General in London representing the people of this State very well, set about reforming Sydney Electricity. As a result of that reform a substantial dividend was returned to the taxpayers of this State. That money has been wisely used in the portfolios of my colleagues the Minister for School Education and Youth Affairs, the Minister for Health and Community Services, who has built hospitals with it, and the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, who has built police stations with it. That is what good management is all about. I understand that the Hon. M. R. Egan does not know about that sort of thing, but that is what the dividends of Sydney Electricity were used for. Of course it is in the business of selling assets. Everyone is selling assets. The Federal Government is selling assets. It sold Customs House at Circular Quay just recently, but I did not hear the Hon. M. R. Egan braying about that. Customs House is a heritage building but we did not hear him talking about that when his mates in Canberra sold it. Sydney
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Electricity will not have a fire sale of anything but it will ensure that it divests itself of non-essential assets, and I have no problem with that.

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