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There have been a couple of specialties that have taken a little bit longer than others to resolve, but we believe that they are on track now as well. So, I will be more than happy to provide that. Mr Connolly would, of course, be well aware that even in early 1994, when a submission was put to the arbitrator - I think it was put under Mr Berry - a mix of fee-for-service and sessional contracts was planned to be offered. This is fascinating. I am very happy to table the document from the previous Government’s submission, which shows total savings of just over $1m. So, it appears that we have doubled the savings, and this list actually shows a mixture of fee-for-service and sessional.

Acton-Kingston Land Swap

MS HORODNY: Mr Speaker, I address my question without notice to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. Given budgetary constraints and the fact that no comprehensive assessment of contaminants has taken place, nor any costings, can the Minister assure the Assembly that the Acton-Kingston land swap is of net economic benefit to the people of the ACT?

MR HUMPHRIES: I will direct that question to the Chief Minister, who is handling this matter.

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much for that question. You are quite right that, at this stage, what it may or may not cost to clean up the Kingston site is not known. As I understand the information that was given to the Assembly committee looking at this last week, it indicated just what a complex issue this is, because whether you actually have to clear the site, whether sealing the site is appropriate and so on really depends on what you use the site for. So, when you look at the costing for cleaning up a site, the first thing you have to do is determine what you are going to use the site for. The area that is of concern is the area around the printing works on the Kingston foreshore. When we take over that site, we have no intention of closing the printing works overnight, so there will be a period of time when we will be able to look at those sorts of issues.

We believe, as we have said quite publicly, that the agreement that was reached with the Commonwealth was the best agreement that we could reach at the time. All you can ever do in these situations is do the best deal you can, but the fact of the matter is that we did a deal. We now have the situation where the Gallery of Aboriginal Australia can go ahead on Acton Peninsula - something that will be a real tourist attraction for the ACT, something that the Aboriginal people of Australia desperately want to go ahead. We are very hopeful also that the ACT-funded Aboriginal cultural centre will go ahead on Acton Peninsula, which is what the Aboriginal Advisory Council actually wants to happen. So, we will be able to go ahead with exciting developments on Acton, and, of course, the international and national competition for Kingston will finally go ahead. It will be wonderful for the ACT in terms of business, in terms of excitement and, of course, in terms of tourism. The issue of sealing the site and cleaning the site is an important one. Certainly, it will be conducted in consultation with everyone in the Assembly and in the ACT.

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