GM HOLDEN

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:10): I have a supplementary. Premier, in your answer you just said you will do better than that: you will bring it to the parliament rather than the IDC. Can you confirm that, by bringing it to the parliament, you deny the opposition the opportunity to ask commercially sensitive questions because they're not able to be made public in the forum of parliament, whereas the IDC provides the opposition that exact forum?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (15:11): I can't control the decisions that General Motors take about what matters they wish to have in the public sphere and those matters they seek to brief the opposition about. Just as we did with the BHP arrangement, we invite and encourage corporate citizens to communicate with the opposition parties to build consensus around these things. They make their own decisions about those sorts of decisions.

The information they want in the public sphere, the information they wish to make confidentially available to the opposition is a matter for them. They've felt comfortable providing confidential information to us. If they felt comfortable providing confidential information to the opposition, I'm sure they would do it. One of the things that may be causing them some discomfort is that the Liberal Party is not committed to car manufacturing in this nation. They are talking about cutting funding of $500 million.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Has the Premier finished his answer? The Premier has finished his answer. The member for Florey.