HomeStart

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (15:08): I seek leave to make a brief explanation—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Ridgway needs to be heard in silence.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Treasurer.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Yesterday, during question time, I asked the Treasurer a question around any intentions that the former Labor government or the current government had around the privatisation of HomeStart. He went on to say that this government has had no such discussions but the former Labor government had a whole range of discussions and ran an EOI (expression of interest) process, especially around the privatisation of the loan book, and I expect other aspects of privatisation of HomeStart. My questions to the Treasurer are:

1. Given that the former government went to the private sector, would the private sector participants in that EOI process expect their participation to be kept confidential?

2. If that has been released, has there been any breach of legislation or any breach of any codes of conduct during the release of that information?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:09): I thank the honourable member for his excellent question yesterday and his follow-up question today. I guess in general terms what I would say, because—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hanson will remain silent and so will the Minister for Health and Wellbeing.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Treasurer will be heard in silence.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I want to hear my own answer.

The PRESIDENT: That would be nice.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: As I said, to be frank, as I indicated yesterday, I am not aware of all of the detail of the confidential discussions or otherwise that the former Treasurer had in relation to privatisation of very many assets, and it wasn't just HomeStart. Certainly, the way I have approached being Treasurer this time around and the same approach I adopted a hundred years ago when I was Treasurer last time round is that the inevitable nature of being a minister of the Crown and particularly being a Treasurer—and those who have been ministers will respect this—is you inevitably have a series of what are confidential discussions with individuals. They might not just be business people; they may well be representatives of NGOs or others who may want to express interest in various proposals.

I think a judgement of the quality of the person as a minister is whether or not they are prepared to respect those particular confidences. I think it is sad if someone breaches those particular confidences that they were entrusted with when they were actually a minister of the Crown. Inevitably, it is clear, by the nature of the questions that were asked in another public forum earlier this week, that questions, I am sure, have been raised in relation to the nature of confidential discussions that were held previously. That's ultimately a judgement call for that individual or those ministers or the former Treasurer to respond to in relation to the way they treat confidences.

All I can say is I will continue to respect any confidences in terms of confidential discussions that I have with either members of parliament—and I have had many of those from the opposition and the crossbench—or indeed other representatives of the non-government sector.

As I said, whilst I don't understand all of the details of the processes the former government went through in relation to at least HomeStart, I do want to say my understanding at the moment is they never got to the stage of an expression of interest process in relation to HomeStart. They conducted confidential discussions and investigations, which may or may not have involved discussions with private sector parties—I don't know that—but they certainly had an expensive scoping study or feasibility study or investigation conducted by Treasury and others in relation to the potential privatisation of HomeStart.

Clearly, either related to that, during that or on separate occasions there were confidential discussions about the future of HomeStart. I hasten to say I don't know all of the detail of the particular discussions the former Treasurer had. What I can repeat is that clearly the former government was in it up to their armpits in terms of further consideration of the privatisation of almost anything that was not nailed down or bolted down. They were prepared to have a look at privatising whatever was moving.