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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 (Hansard) 16 May) . . Page.. 1373 ..

Ms McRae: Why do you not table it?

MRS CARNELL: I am very happy to, but I will read it into Hansard first. Under item 2 in this briefing note, with regard to contamination issues in relation to the Kingston site, it says:

While at that stage -

this is right back at the beginning -

there was no knowledge of contamination on the Kingston site it was anticipated that there could be potential for localised contamination given its previous use. This issue was certainly raised by Mr Townsend and I can confirm that my advice to him was that the fundamental approach being adopted was for the exchange of "clean sites" and I would therefore expect that any necessary remediation would be carried out or otherwise factored into the exchange so that neither the ACT or the Commonwealth would be disadvantaged.

He goes on to say:

I can confirm that I had several discussions with the Hon. Brian Howe, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Housing and Regional Development, which all confirmed that the approach should be consistent with that adopted elsewhere in Australia - that is that the Commonwealth would meet its obligations for remediation of contamination on any land that it was disposing of.

Mr Speaker, I think I have made this clear. In fact, I quoted the first paragraph earlier today, in my first answer. I am very happy to table this minute from Gary Prattley, now Chief Planner, if everybody wants that to have a look at Mr Prattley's recollections of what happened at that time.

Mr Speaker, I come back to the comments made by Mr Berry. Mr Berry has claimed that somehow I have misled this Assembly or misled the people of Canberra. I will accept his comment that maybe not everybody is saying that negotiations were happening right from the beginning. Mr Berry is not saying it. On that basis, I do accept that my comments on "everybody" were probably misleading, particularly to Mr Berry; but the reality is that in that particular radio interview the three people I actually quoted were Gary Prattley, the current Minister involved and, of course, the Prime Minister, who wrote the first letter which suggested that the details of the Kingston foreshore land swap would be subject to negotiation.

Mr Speaker, the only person who has misled this place is Ms McRae. Ms McRae, in saying, as I say again - - -

Mr Berry: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Chief Minister should withdraw that. The Chief Minister said that Ms McRae has misled this chamber. She should withdraw that immediately.

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