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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 41 ..

Ms Follett: And rejected.

MR HUMPHRIES: Ms Follett says that it was rejected. Presumably that is why Ms Follett commissioned a report in which she asked for the question of fees to be examined. But the fact is that the report did not come in to her while she was in government. The report did not arrive until after you had left office. It is that report which is now out in the public arena and which has given rise to the suggestion - the only suggestion, I might say - that there should be park fees. It is a report you commissioned. You commissioned that report.

Mr Speaker, let me explain what the Government's position is. The Government's position is no less or more than the Labor Party's was in 1993-94 but has now changed.

Mr Berry: Why do you not reject it?

Ms Follett: So you do not reject them? We did, but you did not.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The Minister is answering the question.

Mr Berry: Just reject them.

MR HUMPHRIES: I know that it is hard, but please try to understand. Please just engage that mind for a minute.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The Minister is answering the question.

Mr Kaine: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I asked the Minister a question because I wanted to hear the answer, but I have heard scarcely a word yet. I think you must have thrown some meat to the animals in the zoo over the other side somewhere.

MR SPEAKER: I must admit that everybody in this chamber seems to be in full voice after two months' leave.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, the entire origin of the suggestion that there should be park fees in ACT public parks and reserves comes from a paper which was commissioned by the Follett Government and which has landed in our lap as the successor Government. That is the entirety of the issue as far as the origin of that suggestion is concerned.

Ms Follett: Just say no.

MR HUMPHRIES: I will say no more or less than you said in 1993-94. If you can criticise that you are a wonderful athlete. You can do a backflip and double pike with return. Mr Speaker, I do not think Mr Berry is helping his leadership ambitions much with these sorts of suggestions. Field marshals are meant to straddle gallant white thoroughbreds, not straddle barbed wire fences.

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