Page 97 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 1990
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It is an instruction given quite properly and very firmly on 5 December 1989 by Mr W.J. Harris, Secretary, Chief Minister's Department. In that instruction he said, among other things:
Any request from the new Government for a Cabinet document -
and this is a letter to all of his agency heads -
created by the former Government cannot be granted without the approval of the current leader of the appropriate political party. Any such request should be referred to me in writing.
I have inquired of my colleagues. None of us has made any such requests, and to my knowledge and certainly speaking for myself, I have never seen any Cabinet work belonging or pertaining to the former Labor Government. The suggestion that the public service would fall into league with us and assist us is a disgraceful misrepresentation.
Mr Whalan: Were you telling a lie in question time? Tell us about the lie in question time.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, my statement yesterday in question time was that "Thanks to the events in this Chamber we have had access to Mr Whalan's documentation". Certainly, the supply of the Tuggeranong pool office file to Mr Stefaniak on 6 December 1989 on my instruction is a quite proper act of Government. As the former Minister sitting opposite me may recall, we have seen him with Government files himself from time to time, both in this chamber and elsewhere. So there is no convention. I just put that furphy aside, Mr Speaker. I will not delay the time of the house. I doubt that anyone took it seriously anyway.
In the proper processes of budget considerations the Government has yet to formally consider its 1990-91 capital works program. There is a statement that a consultant is in the process of being engaged within the under $50,000 rule. In other words, within the discretion of the agency head, to secure the brief that I mentioned in question time yesterday.
My understanding is that at the last meeting of the community committee, which Mr Whalan established to advise on a pool complex, it was agreed that the ACT public works would proceed with preliminary costing and pre-design work through engaging of a consultant. We have just heard the most extraordinary statement by Mr Whalan. He berated us for employing a consultant, yet the records of that community committee put together by Mr Whalan, and participated in by Mr Whalan, show that it was agreed at that meeting that the preliminary costing and pre-design work would proceed through the engagement of a consultant.
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