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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1467 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

finding out what is likely to be signed by the Government. That is what this is about. We may indeed find out that there have been commercial-in-confidence arrangements between the Government and the proposed private provider in respect of a whole range of things, to prevent this Assembly from finding out about what is planned for this hospital and to stop this community from finding out what is planned for this hospital. Mr Speaker, this amendment must be prevented.

I give an undertaking that this inquiry will not be dragged out for the purposes of preventing anything from happening. This inquiry will be conducted as quickly - - -

Mrs Carnell: We would have to finish it by the end of this month, because the building is starting in June.

MR BERRY: It may not. I give an undertaking that I will not be dragging out this committee of inquiry for the purposes of delaying. The inquiry will take as long as it needs to take to discover all the issues.

Mrs Carnell: You are anti-jobs.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell, you set the dates when you signed the contract. You signed the contract when you found out that this committee of inquiry was about to proceed. You signed the contract after your own hospital had advised the local community that they were negotiating and prepared to consult, and indeed indicated that they were prepared to take into account the views of the community. You signed the contract once you heard about this inquiry. You tried to keep things away from this Assembly. You have tried all along to keep things away from the community. This inquiry is about preventing you from doing that. I urge members to oppose that amendment.

MR MOORE (11.41): When Mrs Carnell stood up to speak, she said - and I am intending to take this quote out of context - that Mr Humphries was right. She then gave an example of when he was right. I think he was also right when he made the most famous of his comments in this Assembly - "I can be honest now that I am in opposition". Indeed, he was right then.

Ms McRae: We will give them a chance next year to test it again.

MR MOORE: I hear Ms McRae interjecting that perhaps he will have the opportunity again next year. Indeed, that may be the case.

Mr Speaker, I will be supporting the motion to refer this matter to a committee. I will be opposing the amendment to change the date, Mrs Carnell's second amendment. I believe the date is much too tight, particularly considering that the Estimates Committee is operating at around that time and members will be involved in that. Although our practice has been to set dates for select committees, there have been enough precedents for leaving it open. In this case it is left open in the knowledge that we have another six or seven months before the election. I would expect to see this matter resolved before Christmas. Our committees have always worked as quickly as they possibly can to examine issues, to resolve them, and to get back to the Assembly, and I expect that that is what Mr Berry will do.

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