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It is outrageously rude; it holds the Assembly committee in contempt; and, in effect, it also holds the Assembly in contempt. I think that Mr Humphries has behaved very badly on that issue. I know that Mrs Carnell has come out and said, “I agree; we will do all these things”. But that is not good enough. You can stand up and say, “I agree with everybody”, which you do most of the time. The problem that we have is this continued bad behaviour and poor performance. From my point of view, I intend to draw attention to it whenever it happens; and it is quite easy. I have no difficulty in finding targets.

The committee has called on the Minister to provide the Assembly with a full explanation of the basis for his unilateral decision to relocate the proposed Cultural and Heritage Centre; and I hope that the Minister takes that recommendation seriously. I hope that the full explanation is here quickly. I suspect that what happened was that the Government needed the money for something else and wanted to use it for something else; and this important feature of the ACT was just brushed aside at a whim.

One of the other things that first came to my attention with this capital works budget was another broken promise. I heard Mr De Domenico say today, “We always deliver”, or words to that effect. Every time he has said that there is this electric jolt about the Belconnen pool, petrol taxes and so on. He says, “What we promise, we deliver”. I would not use that one any more. It does not work. It is a bit stale; it does not work. When we saw the public works budget, quite clearly out of it was the Belconnen pool. There was not a dollar for it. Clearly, it was a broken promise. It is a great disappointment to me that two Liberal members from Belconnen have not been able to hold any sway over this Government in relation to this pool. One of them is the Sport Minister, for heaven’s sake. The Sport Minister, one would think, in relation to a sports facility - - -

Mr Hird: You did not leave any money in the kitty, mate. Have a look at next year.

MR BERRY: You had enough money in the kitty, mate, to subsidise a few of your business mates and give them a little helping hand so that they could give you a round of applause.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry has the floor.

MR BERRY: Not by myself, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: No. But that will change.

MR BERRY: I hope so. That will make it much easier on me.

MR SPEAKER: Indeed. And on me.

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, the Liberals are never going to forget that broken promise. The people of Belconnen listened to their promise; and many would have supported them because of it. It did not turn up within the capital works budget.

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