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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 266 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

department, and I took him on. I certainly did. I made very many public statements about that particular public servant. I do not want to drag that situation back up again. You know what I am talking about. I think there is an appropriate time to do that, and that is when the public servants put their neck out themselves by making public statements. In this case, in every single situation that you have presented here where you are talking about public servants, they have put their own necks out. They are the ones making the statements.

Mrs Carnell: Oh, rubbish!

MR MOORE: When they put their neck out it is appropriate to speak about them when we are talking about them individually. I hear from the Chief Minister, "Oh, rubbish". Well, rubbish is not good enough. You just have not come up with the evidence.

Mrs Carnell: From our perspective we have.

MR MOORE: You simply have not come up with the evidence. You are talking generally about an administration that has problems, and Stein agreed that the administration does have big problems. He made recommendations particularly about the administration of planning and leasehold. He made very strong recommendations about reworking them. You decided, your Government decided, not to do that, and you had the support of the Labor Party in deciding not to do that. However, you have adopted a different method of trying to achieve that.

I understand your perception of it, but - correct me if I am wrong - you have gone about trying to get the sense of Stein and achieving some other things at the same time; to turn it around so that the planning department is not going to carry the perception of corrupt behaviour, because you are changing the way the systems work. As I have said to you, I do not think it is going to work. I think you should have done it the way Stein said, but I am prepared to watch and see whether the system works. To say that the system is still corrupt, not the person or the individuals are corrupt, but the system is corrupt - is a perfectly reasonable thing.

Mrs Carnell: We have said anybody has a right to say it, but not to say it from the platform of a board.

MR MOORE: Chief Minister, you have not come up with one iota of evidence to support what you are putting out.

Mrs Carnell: That is your perception. From our perception we have.

MR MOORE: The opinions you have put up are personal opinions. I have known you very well for quite a long time and I have to try to work out what it is or who it is that is influencing you in this way, because I think that this is extraordinary and uncharacteristic vindictiveness. I must say I think it is quite uncharacteristic, but some of my colleagues in the Assembly do not agree with me. I think it is uncharacteristic vindictiveness that

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