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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3800 ..

MRS CARNELL: But I am responding to the Estimates Committee report. So if it is all right to talk about - - -

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker - - -

MR SPEAKER: You will have the opportunity to respond to the Government's response in due course.

Mr Berry: I am happy to put more of this on the record and I will do so in due course, if that is what you wish; but the Estimates Committee report is this document, no more.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I call Mrs Carnell.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I have to ask the question: If it was all right for Mr Berry to speak about this issue when he was speaking to the report, why is it not all right for me to speak about it when I am tabling the Government's response to the report? You have to argue - - -

Mr Berry: It is not mentioned in the report.

Mr De Domenico: Then why did you talk about it?

MRS CARNELL: Yes. Mr Speaker, that was the issue I was actually raising in my response here. I was very interested to note the number of issues and items that were raised in the debate on this report and that simply are not in the Estimates Committee report at all.

In fact, as I have already said, Mr Speaker, the Government has supported either in principle or in full all but one of the recommendations. We believe that a number of the recommendations are very sensible and will add to the whole process. It is a very great pity, Mr Speaker, that Mr Berry, and others as well, did not confine themselves in their speeches on this report to the actual issues that were in the Estimates Committee report. I think that Ms McRae did a reasonably good job in the report, at least when it came to the recommendations. I have to say that in the actual text of the report there were some comments that I think were way off centre, but I suppose the issues that we usually look at in this situation are those relating to the recommendations.

Mr Speaker, I come back to the point I made earlier. There may be occasions, but I cannot see a situation where it is appropriate to attack in this forum a public servant who already has been attacked and questioned in the estimates procedures. I do not believe that it achieves one thing for the status of this Assembly, Mr Speaker. Again I come back to the issue. We have probably managed to create a precedent that I am sure no other parliament will manage, and that is to criticise somebody for moving from a six-cylinder car to a four-cylinder station wagon, Mr Speaker. It is not a BMW, Mr Speaker; it is not even a Mercedes Benz; we are talking about a four-cylinder station wagon.

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