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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 265 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I quote that one because that is a response taking into account the Government's rejection of Stein, who was trying to deal in turn with this public perception of the leasehold system being used for personal profit. Indeed, Mr Speaker, it was a perfectly rational and perfectly reasonable thing to say. To suggest that therefore somebody in the community has been acting in a terrible way, criticising public servants, is just simply not sustained through the evidence that has been presented either by Mr Humphries or by the Chief Minister. He quoted from Ten Capital News on 18 November 1996, supposedly to add to this as well. This was just a little bit before the actions of Tony De Domenico. This is the quote:

It is tragic that the Federal Government is withdrawing from Canberra. But we are not going to attract them back by the kind of skulduggery, the third rate, indeed the tenth rate decision making, the appalling run down administration, by the clowns who are in the Legislative Assembly.

Yes, I understand that this might be a little embarrassing and so forth, but the reality is that it is a political comment and we all make political comments of - - -

Mr Humphries: On us, that is fine.

MR MOORE: And that is on you. That is what it says. It contains the word "administration". It says "the appalling run down administration".

Mrs Carnell: It is run down administration.

Mr Humphries: No, it is about administration as well - run down administration. It is about public servants, too, Michael.

MR MOORE: Now, suddenly, we cannot say, "The appalling run down administration that this Government has run down". We heard criticism after criticism in here when the Public Sector Management Bill went through, and I have to take a bit of that criticism, too. I have heard Labor saying again and again, "This is an appalling situation. We are running down the Public Service". When they make that criticism I have to wear it, too, because I supported the legislation. In that sense it would appear that I do have to take a little bit of the clowning. Well, I have fairly broad shoulders. This is not - - -

Mr Humphries: So have we. We are quite prepared to wear that.

MR MOORE: We keep getting this interjection, "But there are the public servants. But it is the public servants. She is saying something about the public servants". Every piece of evidence you have about the public servants here is in response to something the public servants have said publicly themselves.

Mr Humphries has said to me, "Mr Moore, you would not attack the public servants on this", and generally that is true. But he may remember that when he was the Minister for Education there was a very senior public servant at that time who very publicly made a whole run of comments about school closures and so forth, as the head of that

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