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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (21 February) . . Page.. 124 ..

MR SPEAKER: He was asked a question by Ms Horodny. Do you seek leave to speak again, Mr De Domenico?

Mr De Domenico: Yes, I do.

MR SPEAKER: Is leave granted?

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I trust that you will let other people ask questions as they feel it necessary.

Mr De Domenico: With respect, I have sought leave from this Assembly to speak.

Leave granted.

MR DE DOMENICO (Minister for Urban Services) (3.28): I thank members of the Assembly for agreeing to allow me to speak again, which is proper. Ms Horodny asked a question. All the information that Mr Whitecross wants made available to him and that can be made available to him on paper I shall give him today if it is humanly possible. If it is not possible to do that, I shall let you know why not, and we will provide it tomorrow or the next day. Is that okay?

MR WHITECROSS (3.28), in reply: Mr Speaker, the performance of Mrs Carnell and Mr De Domenico is absolutely extraordinary.

Mrs Carnell: Don't be a smart arse, Andrew.

MR WHITECROSS: They must think we are the biggest bunch of mugs in the history of the universe. My motion asks for the records of usage of individual services; that is, how many people caught the 120 bus at 6.00 am? How many caught the 120 at 6.15 am? How many people caught the 120 at 6.30 am? It is not a very complicated request. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell would have us believe that she has a huge mass of information which her senior advisers, her senior bureaucrats, are wallowing around in and have no summaries of or distillation of. She would have us believe that this information has not been reduced to a form that can tell us, for instance, how many people caught the 6.07 am service of the 120.

I am not talking about five tonnes of paper. I have seen the A4 version of the Bus Book '96. The amount of information I am talking about would easily fit on the amount of paper in that book. It is not an extraordinary amount of information. If they knew enough about the bus services to be able to put together Bus Book '96, they have that information to table in this Assembly. Mrs Carnell is just showing her ignorance by talking the way she has talked, and Mr De Domenico has done nothing to help.

Mr De Domenico: Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak again.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Whitecross has just closed the debate.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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