Page 3532 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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Mr Collaery: This is to the Chief Minister; she can stand on her two feet. Mr Acting Speaker, I directed the question to the Chief Minister. I do not want to hear Mr Berry. I could not take it, not today.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Well, I call the Chief Minister first. It is up to the Chief Minister whether she defers on it. She can answer it if she wants to.
MS FOLLETT: I find it absolutely extraordinary, Mr Acting Speaker, that members opposite are not prepared to allow me to refer a question to the Minister who clearly has responsibility for this matter. It is a very remarkable attitude on their part; but, of course, it is consistent with Mr Kaine's attitude when in government. He would not answer a question on anything. He consistently referred it to any and all of his members. Mr Acting Speaker, again, if Mr Collaery wants me to go through the budget papers and find the page for him, I will do my best. I am not certain that that will be a very simple exercise.
The fact of the matter is that the $1m owed by the Rugby League is being pursued by the relevant Minister, Mr Berry. It is being pursued by him actively and in a way that will mean that the Territory will get it. That is in stark contrast, I believe, to the way it was pursued by Mr Collaery when he had ministerial responsibility for this matter. In typical fashion, Mr Collaery sought to throw every possible legal impediment and every possible bit of legal trickery into the debate surrounding this money, to the point where, when Labor again took government, there was absolutely no sign that Mr Collaery had really ever tried to get the money. He had sought to engage in all sorts of legalistic chicanery which had put off everybody involved - absolutely put off everybody involved, except the lawyers, probably - but the result of that was that not one dollar of the million had been paid over.
I am absolutely confident that Mr Berry will achieve the payment in time and, of course, he will do that in a way that does not totally alienate all of the other participants in that process. I refer Mr Collaery to Budget Paper No. 5, pages 91 and 92, where I think he will find the information he needs.
MR COLLAERY: I ask a supplementary question. If that is the Chief Minister's response and if she does believe that her Territory Government Law Office and Crown Solicitor's Office are engaged in legal trickery, so be it, and I leave it to her to apologise to those good advisers. Nevertheless, Mr Acting Speaker, I ask the Chief Minister: Why, therefore, if she sees the money as recoverable, did she issue a press release on 4 January of this year stating that the Raiders clearly should not have to pay the money because "The Alliance Government had abolished the Bruce Stadium Trust and removed members of that trust"?
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