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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2826 ..

Mr Osborne: Who asked the question?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Osborne asked the question, that is true; but when the question was asked, I might point out, the answer was available then and there as to the fact that there was a shortfall. That matter had been drawn to my attention shortly before the point where the question was asked, and I am sure it was drawn to Mr Osborne's attention by much the same sources. I said before that we got weekly reports. Now we get monthly reports on staff. We have had monthly reports on staffing. Those reports have always shown staffing at the level of 594, which is the number that the ACT has actually paid for. We had assumed that we had had 689 staff supplied by the Commonwealth under the terms of the contract; but, of course, we pay for only 594 of those staff.

MR WHITECROSS: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, with all the Government's hype about the purchaser-provider model and your claimed commitment to it, why have these principles not been applied to a contract which costs the ACT community over $50m? If monitoring contracts involves believing everything the supplier tells you about how they have complied with the contract, why should we believe that any of the contracts this Government has with any private people or others to supply services to the Government have been properly administered?

Mr Corbell: A good question.

MR HUMPHRIES: What a bloody dumb question, if you have to ask me! We have purchaser-provider principles in place now and that has revealed that there is a shortfall. That is why we have had this new system put in place. Why would you not have a system like this in place when it produces these kinds of results? Mr Speaker, I think that the Opposition is behaving in a quite crazy way. Somehow they want to show that this whole thing is to do with poor accounting, but under the accounting system we have at the moment we are in a position to be able to reveal the extent of that problem.

Mr Whitecross a moment ago was not even aware that Mr Osborne had asked that question. Now he is saying it is Mr Osborne who has saved the day; he is the one who found the shortfall. Mr Speaker, both Mr Osborne and I no doubt discovered the source of this problem from the same place. I have no doubt about that, and I have no doubt that the steps being taken to rectify this have flowed from that information.

MS HORODNY: My question is directed to the Chief Minister and relates to a proposal put forward by the managing director of Leader Real Estate, Mr Derek Whitcombe, to subdivide a 390-hectare rural property next to Hall into 150 rural residential farmlets. In media reports on this issue, Mr Whitcombe suggested that he had your backing, Mrs Carnell, to proceed with this proposal. Also, in a letter from Mr Whitcombe to the executive director of the Planning and Land Management Group last June, Mr Whitcombe says that his proposal evolved from several initial discussions between him and you. Chief Minister, can you please tell the Assembly the full nature of your involvement with Mr Whitcombe in the development of this proposal?

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