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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2090 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, bear in mind the contrast between what Ms Follett said today when she rose to speak on this matter and what has been said in previous days about it in this place. Ms Follett got up to say that her beef was that there was an appearance of impropriety. Bear in mind the things that were said before today, though, when there was no need to put up or shut up. It was that we were doing deals for our mates; not the appearance that we might be doing deals for our mates, but we were doing deals for our mates; that we had rigged the wording of the Auctioneers Act to do a deal for our mates - that sort of thing. Where was the substance of that allegation today? It was nowhere to be seen. These people are cowards. They are spineless, yellow-bellied, abject cowards, and when it comes to the crunch they cannot sustain the basis of their attack in this place or, moreover, and more to the point, outside it.

As far as Mr De Domenico is concerned, what was done complied rigorously with a procedure laid down not by this Government but by our predecessors, the very party that is now laying into us on this issue. The purchasing policy which has been much discussed in this place is dated September 1994. It was the policy of the former Government.

Ms Follett: Why did you not follow it?

MR HUMPHRIES: We have, scrupulously, to the last word. Mr Speaker, that policy says, in respect of the purchase of non-construction goods and services by the ACT Government, that where the value of those services or goods is between $2,000 and $50,000 it is the requirement of the administration to seek at least three written quotations locally. That is what occurred. Indeed, more than a minimum number of quotations were sought, in contrast to the previous Government's handling of the same auction arrangements last year. In this case seven tenders were sought, through a quite acceptable and normal process - the seeking of the details of interested tenderers in the Canberra Yellow Pages.

That process was not one that was overseen in any active way by Mr De Domenico because the procedures and guidelines were there in black and white. His Department of Urban Services knew exactly what to do. It was laid down there. There are longstanding procedures on how to go about this kind of matter and it followed them. The allegation from Mr Whitecross of slapdash behaviour by Mr De Domenico has not been borne out. Mr De Domenico has a department under him that followed the procedures laid down in the law and the purchasing policies made under that law. The Opposition have not laid one finger on the behaviour of the Minister concerned, Mr De Domenico. They have not made one comment of substance about what he did do which he should not have done, or what he did not do which he should have done.

The nearest that they come to it is some suggestion that these rules should have changed at some point in time. I am not sure whether they should have changed when the Government took office or when this particular auction took place, or at some other point. I am not quite clear on that. They have not spelt that out. They have not had the guts to put their allegations on the table. At some point in time there should have been some change in these documents to reflect the fact that certain people, under these rules, were no longer eligible to bid for government contracts. Ms Follett, I think, tried to state that fairly well when she interjected on the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister was saying

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