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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 594 ..

Debate resumed.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, we must not give them any opportunity to put off funding the National Museum. For the first time for a long time we have a Prime Minister who has supported it. There have been many people on both sides of the house who have supported it. As we know, it was not one of the things that Paul Keating supported. He did not support it anywhere. It was not so much Canberra; he just did not want a National Museum. He was quite open about it. The fact is that we have a promise here, we have money available, and we have a site.

Mr Berry: The Liberals promised it, but that was not a core promise either.

MRS CARNELL: If Mr Berry does not want this to happen he is going the right way about it.

Mr Berry: It is not my motion.

MRS CARNELL: It is your interjection. The Government, obviously, will be opposing this motion, and we will be doing it for a number of reasons. One is that the agreement between the Commonwealth and the Territory has now been concluded. Ms Tucker seems to believe that somehow this process was not an ongoing process to get to the stage that we have reached. Earlier this week, I understand, officers of my department gave a briefing to the Planning and Environment Committee to confirm that the Government's negotiating position was consistent with the committee's views and to provide an update.

I understand, at the same time, that the National Capital Authority made an offer to the Territory which again rejected the ACT's arguments about responsibility for contamination at Kingston and suggested that the Territory assume liability for all costs of remediation at Kingston. That was clearly unacceptable, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. As I understand it, the committee was advised on Monday that, if negotiations at the official level were to stall, which they obviously did, the Government would handle it at a political level. Again, you were told that. So that is exactly what I did. I handled it at a political level.

I went to see the Minister for Territories. We had our discussion and we came away with a solution - the solution that the ACT went in with - and an exchange of letters followed. As I said, this has nothing to do with the motion, nothing to do with a speeded up process. This is exactly what the Planning and Environment Committee was told, and it was updated on our direction. We also, we believe, had the Planning and Environment Committee's agreement to our negotiating position. The Planning and Environment Committee did not oppose our negotiating position.

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