Page 5001 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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He points out that he was not given the master development control plan. That is quite true. The master development control plan was not in existence at the time he asked for it, and of course I could not provide it for that reason. He was, I understand, subsequently provided with it. Every piece of information which he was not given on that day and which was available was subsequently provided to him and Ms Follett. Now I repeat my invitation: What piece of information was not given to you - - -
Ms Follett: I did not get the master development control plan.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am afraid that it was not available. I cannot provide what is not available.
Ms Follett: You just said that you gave it to us subsequently. You did not give it to me.
MR HUMPHRIES: I said that it was subsequently made available to you. The fact of life, Mr Speaker, is that we need to ask the question: What was missing from the Labor Party's portfolio of information which would have led them to say to the people of the ACT, and in particular to the Residents Rally for Canberra, who they, with respect, conned on this issue - - -
Ms Follett: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is a clear imputation in the use of the word "conned", Mr Speaker, and I think it should be withdrawn.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries, I would ask you, at this late hour, to avoid acrimony, to choose your words more carefully and to withdraw that.
MR HUMPHRIES: I will rephrase it.
Ms Follett: Will you withdraw it?
MR HUMPHRIES: I withdraw the word "conned", and I will say that they led the Residents Rally down the garden path. I ask again, Mr Speaker: What exactly was it that they needed to know to be able to decide then and there that they could not stop the closure of Royal Canberra Hospital? My answer to that question, Mr Speaker, is that there was nothing. They knew before the change of government was first mooted in the Assembly, I think on about 25 May or 28 May - they knew well before that date - that the closure of Royal Canberra Hospital was irreversible; that the point of no return to which Mr Berry referred had been reached and passed some time previously.
We do not disagree with the view that there is a point of no return. My contention, Mr Speaker, is that the Labor Party knew well before then that they had reached and passed that point, and they continued to give the impression and to lead the community and the rest of
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