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MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell, on several occasions now, has accused me of having planned to sell Acton Peninsula for high-rise development.

Mrs Carnell: You must have. You said that it was worth $45m.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I want to make it absolutely clear that my Government had no such intention, and to perpetuate this untruth reflects very poorly indeed on Mrs Carnell. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell has tabled two documents, one of which was my letter to the Prime Minister of June 1992, and I would like to read in part from that. I said in that letter:

The ACT Government also believes that the opportunity should remain for the provision on the Peninsula of public health facilities including a hospice, rehabilitation and aged care services, a relocated Queen Elizabeth II Hospital for Mothers and Babies and nursing home facilities.

This vision does not, however, preclude any future negotiations that the Commonwealth may wish to initiate with the ACT Government to have a site reserved on the south eastern end of the Peninsula for a landmark building of National Capital significance.

Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell is deliberately misconstruing that position.

She has also tabled the valuation which was done on Acton Peninsula at the time. The valuation, as you will see, puts a very high dollar value on that site for the highest commercial use. I have never used that dollar value; but, unlike Mrs Carnell, I have never assumed either that the Acton site had no dollar value. I have always believed it to be one of the most important and valuable assets of this Territory. I would in no way condone Mrs Carnell's having traded that away, in my opinion, in a very poor deal indeed. As we heard yesterday, it is her intention also to hand over Kingston to the developers in her version of a joint venture. It is quite untrue to perpetuate the myth that Mrs Carnell has been putting about, Mr Speaker. I would like to table a letter which I have had from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The letter was written to me. It says, amongst other things, that they are writing to thank me for the role which I have played in helping AIATSIS to find a new home. They are delighted with the Acton Peninsula proposal and so on. I would like to table that letter as well.

Leave granted.

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