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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 273 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

This is not a case of saying, "The board has not had time to look". The board said on page 192 of its report:

The Board has found no evidence of patronage or improper advantage. Some may have benefited but this arises more from a finely developed sense of the way in which the system works. In a society the size of the ACT, it is necessary to ensure that the system is open and that information is readily obtainable in order to minimise any potential risk. To do otherwise will likely be corrosive of trust in the community and in Government.

Again on page 192 they said this:

The Board emphasises that it has no evidence that any politician or public official has acted in a position of conflict of interest or has ever put interest arising from personal or other relationships above that of the community. The Board accepts Mr Townsend's assurances that he has never acted in bad faith, incompetently, corruptly or favoured private interests over public interests.

The claim that was made, that the Stein inquiry vindicated all the critics who alleged all those things, simply is not true. On page 189 the board said this:

The Board found no evidence to suggest that any individual public official had acted in any way which breached the relevant law or administrative guidelines in relation to any individual decision or dealing.

All those things are in the Stein inquiry report. All those things that were said by Ms Rees yesterday about that are untrue.

Mr Speaker, I want to come back briefly to this question of the connection between the AMP Society and Ms Rees. I do not believe that there is any evidence or assertion at all that Ms Rees has acted improperly or acted improperly before her term on the Interim Kingston Foreshore Development Authority expired in respect of her relationship with the AMP. I make that very clear. I, for one, will clear up any sort of further ripples that my comments would make. I do not suggest that. I have no evidence of it. In fact, I believe it would not be true.

But, Mr Speaker, I do think that the issue here is not what actually occurred in the way of a conflict of interest. What is important is the perception. That is the issue, as Mr Moore pointed out, that Ms Rees raised herself - "There is a perception that public officials can, and do, use `inside information' ... for personal profit". There is the perception issue, and the perception issue here is that a person with a financial interest in a major property holder, who did not disclose her employment or her contractual relationship with the AMP, clearly has a potential conflict of interest. That is the potential; that is the perception.

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