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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2085 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

MR WHITECROSS: Some solid decision-making by you but no analysis of the impact of 45 plates on the taxi industry?

MR DE DOMENICO: If you are prepared to do the analysis, Mr Whitecross, in your spare time, you do it.

MR WHITECROSS: I would have thought, Minister, you are the decision maker; I would have thought you would do the analysis, you would have done the analysis before you made the decision.

MR DE DOMENICO: And I have made the decision, Mr Whitecross, and the decision stands. That is the way government operates. We will make the decisions.

MR WHITECROSS: And that is the way you make decisions, without any analysis?

MR DE DOMENICO: ... that is the way governments operate, ...

"That is the way governments make decisions", he said.

Mr Connolly: Obviously.

MR WHITECROSS: Obviously - no analysis; no consideration of the impact; no thought as to whether this was going to work or not; no thought for the small business people who have now had $80,000 wiped off the value of their small business. Instead, just pick a number out of the air and make a decision. As I said at the beginning, this is a government that just does not get it when it comes to how government works, what government processes are about, what government decision-making is about. Mr De Domenico thinks it is about plucking a number out of the air and sticking it in the budget papers, and then equivocating about the number later and saying that it does not mean what he said it meant.

Let us now go to the question of the selection of Harold Hird and Associates as the auctioneer to do this. Mrs Carnell and Mr De Domenico have made much of the fact that Harold Hird has no relationship to the company, that Harold Hird and Associates are the ones who are making this donation to charity, et cetera. Let us just look at some of the facts in relation to this. Harold Hird said on Capital TV on 19 October:

As a matter of fact, I spoke to the General Manager, Mr Keith Ritchie, on early Friday morning and I sponsored a morning tea with FABRIC, and I announced [that we would be donating the $250 commission to FABRIC] ...

Mr Connolly: That "we"?

MR WHITECROSS: "I announced it then". Mr Harold Hird, who has no relationship - - -

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