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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2289 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, this Government, obviously, will not oppose any attempt to put the truth - to quote Mr Osborne - on the table. Equally, it is important for me to make it clear to the members of this house that an inquiry of this sort is not something that the Assembly should take on lightly. Inquiries of this sort can cost significant taxpayer dollars. We passed the budget not quite two hours ago, an hour-and-a-half ago. It would appear that we are drawing on the Treasurer's Advance already, Mr Speaker, and that is not something that, as Treasurer, I am terribly positive about doing. Equally, Mr Speaker, the TAB is an important source of revenue for the ACT. It is important, particularly in the area of betting and racing, that there is no innuendo or views amongst any part of the community that we, as a Government or as an industry, are not behaving appropriately.

From that perspective, I suppose the question I have to leave with the Assembly is that we have to make sure that the costs of this inquiry are not too high for the benefits that we might get; but, again, we have absolutely nothing to hide as a Government. From that perspective, anything that puts the truth on the table, that gets rid of innuendos in an industry that often does have a certain level of rumour and innuendo floating around, is something that we would not oppose.

MR BERRY (9.53): Mr Speaker, this morning the Labor Party was approached with a motion which was somewhat different from this one.

Mrs Carnell: How different?

MR BERRY: Interestingly different. It was interestingly different from this one and it was a motion that we were cautiously prepared to support. The issue of secret commissions and illegal activities raises the spectre of concern about the future of our own TAB. That, of course, relates to the link between the TAB and Tabcorp in Victoria, and that is something that all of us who have had the experience of seeing that withdrawn should be cautious about. On that score, I hope that there is sufficient evidence at foot to warrant this inquiry that is proposed by Mr Osborne.

Having been the feature of discussion about VITAB at some time in the past, and having passed through an inquiry, I point out that the proposed inquiry is not going to be something that is going to come cheaply for the Government, and it is something - - -

Mr Humphries: Now you are worried about that. Now you are worried about a cost to the Government. Funny, is it not?

MR BERRY: The VITAB inquiry, which was born out of the political circumstances at the time and resulted in an intensive investigation of the circumstances, cleared me in relation - - -

Mr Humphries: No; you had to resign. It did not clear you. You had to resign, remember.

Mr Whitecross: That was before the inquiry, actually.

MR BERRY: It cleared me in relation to that matter.

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