Page 4262 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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MR WOOD: On the same day? At that time he expressed his concern that I had not tabled the draft variation when he had thought, for whatever reason, it might have been tabled. After that meeting, again not by my organisation, he brought to me people from the Forrest bowling club, and we sat at the table upstairs for 10 or 15 minutes while they spoke about it. That was certainly before the variation was tabled in this parliament, but when the procedure through the planners was complete.
Mr Jensen: After it was signed?
MR WOOD: Yes, after it was signed, I would think, Mr Jensen. As to those who object, people in my office had a meeting earlier this week with some people who are opposing the plan. To the extent of my memory - I will sit down now and think more carefully about it, just to make sure that I have been quite accurate in what I have said to you - those are the meetings that I have had on this matter. You are going to ask a supplementary question, so I will let you ask that.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary question. No-one would ever suggest that Mr Wood would do anything improper, and that is not the point of the question. But, Mr Wood, were you influenced by those meetings, or that meeting, and, possibly in an attempt to absolve yourself from any possible complications with that, did you go to the Gorman House art market and buy a "capitalist pig"?
MR WOOD: Thank you for your comments. I do want to be clear that everything that I do, I trust, is open; it is known. I will always indicate to whom I have spoken and what it was about.
To come back to your question, in general, if I am allowed to do this, I recognise the right of all individuals to contact officers in the departments, as they can do so quite legitimately, and it is accepted that lobbyists may also do that. It is important that events like that be as open and as known as possible, especially in that very, very sensitive area of lease changes. I think we all recognise that in the ACT it is a particularly sensitive area, and I certainly hope that any approaches are open and able to be known.
I did not buy a "capitalist pig", Mr Collaery. I understand that some very discerning people in this Assembly did, but I did not take that opportunity.
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