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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (25 February) . . Page.. 395 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Do they want an answer or do they not, Mr Speaker? Again I say, "How dare you people opposite criticise us for trying to deliver on a fifth crew when you people promised it and never even tried".

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question?

MR CORBELL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, do you now agree that it was a mistake to announce on 24 September funding for a fifth crew to be available only seven days later? In which media release of the two I have already quoted in the previous question do you feel you deliberately misled the community? Was it your release of 23 September or your release of 24 February?

MR SPEAKER: Order! The question is out of order. You are asking for an expression of opinion.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Corbell and particularly his colleague Mr Wood are deliberately misleading the Assembly and the community on this issue. They know that 24 September was budget day. Information that was factored into the budget for budget day was produced some time before budget day. You do not write the budget speech on budget day.

Mr Whitecross: So press releases released on budget day are not necessarily true?

MR HUMPHRIES: All that information was factored in - - -

MR SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs Carnell: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Standing orders 39 and 61 prevent the sorts of interruptions and disorder we have seen.

MR SPEAKER: Constant interruption. I uphold the point of order.

MR HUMPHRIES: I emphasise, Mr Speaker, that, when saying that there would be a full-time fifth crew, what the Government was saying - - -

Mr Whitecross: You were saying that you would provide a full-time fifth crew.

MR HUMPHRIES: If those opposite would like to listen, they might hear.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The next person who interjects will be warned.

MR HUMPHRIES: We were distinguishing between the part-time crew we had funded in 1995-96 and the full-time crew we were promising for 1996-97, or at least from 1 October 1996. It was a full-time crew in the sense that it was resourced to be operating 24 hours a day.

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