Page 2942 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Willmot appears to have just picked up the phone, spoken to a lawyer and told him a version of events, and then said, "I was told that that amounted to misleading the house". I would like to know what Mr Willmot told that lawyer and I would like to see that lawyer's advice, if it exists, before I would give any credence to the view that Mr Kaine was pushing, that this is the masterpiece which establishes his case. All we have is a record, which does not appear on any departmental file, of a legal advice. There is no record of it being given and it would have been improper for it to have been sought by that then public servant without going through the appropriate procedures to get legal advice other than from the Government Solicitor. We cannot see the advice. It was obtained in inappropriate circumstances.
This is a furphy. I suspect that Mr Willmot told that lawyer his version of events, and his version of events would have been, "The cost is $900,000; they said that it was $500,000; is that misleading?". Given that, one could assume that that is right. But the fact is that that $890,000 bid was not the real cost. That has been made clear by the information from Mr Wood which shows that that was padded out by at least $164,000 and in other ways. At the end of the day the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of this alleged misleading statement is the actual cost that was given to the Estimates Committee. It was the ballpark figure, $500,000 plus $100,000.
Mr Kaine: Plus another $65,000.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR CONNOLLY: Plus some $50,000. It is nothing like the $890,000 figure. That was a ballpark inflated figure, very similar, Madam Speaker, to the type of ballpark inflated figure in the case of the Ainslie Transfer Station, and very similar to the type of inflated figure that you tend to get with any policy proposal. My experience is that, generally speaking, when you ask, "How can we do something?", the information that comes to you includes an ambit claim. Why Ms Follett's budgets have always been balanced and your budget was out by $6m is because Ministers in this Government take out the pen, pare those estimates and say, "You have to do this within a budget. You have to do it cheaper and you have to do it smarter".
Madam Speaker, all that this shows is that the Opposition either does not understand the process by which government budgets are created and bids are made - given their record in government that would not be surprising - or are just wilfully trying to beat up a claim of misleading when the evidence is not there. Apart from that silly headline, what those figures show is that there was an original bid which was far, far higher than the actual cost, and that the actual cost was some $50,000 above the estimate that was given, and that is within the range of estimates. That actual cost was certainly far closer than your so-called original figure of $900,000.
MS SZUTY (4.53): I was not going to address the censure motion this afternoon; but, given the debate, I think I will. Perhaps I will be the last speaker before Mr Kaine sums up, and perhaps that is appropriate, I having been one of the key protagonists against school closures during the time that the debate occurred. Mr Humphries, in particular, will remember my involvement well.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .