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She said in February last year that the Acton site had been valued at $45m. That was a valuation based on medium-density to high-density housing.

Ms Follett: No.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, it was. The site is not worth that much without housing on it. You know that, Ms Follett; everybody knows that. The site as a recreational area or as the home for a hospice or the home for rehabilitation and aged care services is not worth $45m. In fact, I doubt that you could sell the hospice to anybody. It does not have any economic value. A child-care centre might have some economic value, but probably not. The Greens have talked about putting economic values on things. What was the economic value of that site? It certainly has enormous value to the community of the ACT in other respects. It has enormous symbolic value, and it has enormous value as a site for a cultural or national institution; but the $45m that Ms Follett has attached to that site is a value that comes from housing. To suggest that you really were not intending housing and that that is an exaggeration, with great respect, is a complete distortion of the truth. Mr Speaker, the fact of the matter is that this Government intends to work towards an arrangement whereby we will ensure that the best use of that land is made with appropriate national institutions and that high-density housing does not go ahead on that site.

Let me list a few of the things that have been said by the Opposition. Mr Berry keeps saying that the community would be very uneasy about this proposal. He told us this morning that the community would be upset to a man and woman about the closure of Tuesday night sittings. I really wonder where Mr Berry gets his wonderful source of knowledge about what this community wants and thinks. If he does know so much about the community, I wonder whether he was able to predict the Government's defeat at the election on 18 February, because that was certainly what the community wanted at the time as well. We should beware of snake oil salesmen coming in here and saying, “Yes, the community wants this; the community wants that. I know”. I think that what the community wants is a sensible, rational decision that will generate the things that the community wants. It wants two things from this arrangement. It wants a beginning to the National Museum of Australia and it wants jobs. That is what the Acton-Kingston arrangement is all about. It is about creating opportunities and creating jobs. The suggestion that surreptitious demolition is going to occur, as if the Cabinet is going to put on overalls and get out there with flashlights in the middle of night and knock down the Royal Canberra Hospital, with great respect, is nonsense.

Let me conclude by making something very clear, Mr Speaker. If the ACT Legislative Assembly wishes to prevent the ACT Government from carrying through the agreement it has entered into with the Commonwealth, it most certainly can do that. The Government is responsible, first and foremost, to the people of the ACT, and it is responsible to the people of the ACT through the ACT Legislative Assembly. If the Assembly says to this Government, “You will discontinue the arrangement to proceed to swap that land; you will not demolish the Royal Canberra Hospital; you will not accept land from the Commonwealth at Kingston”, then that is what this Government will do.

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