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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4459 ..

MRS CARNELL: I would like to give some extra information from question time. First, as to the cost of the publication: The Chronicle costs were $10,977.48, and the graphic design cost was $2,670.55, which was $13,648.03 altogether. The decision to go ahead with the publication was made by the head of the hospital and the board at the hospital.

MRS CARNELL: There is also some information on the question that Mr Osborne asked about VCG and who they were. It is a company called Value Creation Group, headed up by Jim Comain. The costs of that work are in the annual report, as I pointed out. There are no problems whatsoever in Mr Osborne or, for that matter, anybody else having a briefing and having a copy of it, because the outcomes of those focus groups were given to all participants. They have been out there all the time. There are absolutely no problems at all with that.

MR WHITECROSS (4.06): Mr Speaker, following Mr Moore's invitation, I seek leave to move a motion of want of confidence in the Speaker.

Mr Moore: I do not think I invited you; I just said "not at question time".

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, Mr Moore invited me, after question time, to seek leave to move a motion of want of confidence in the Speaker. I am seeking leave to move that motion.

Leave granted.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, I move:

That this Assembly expresses a lack of confidence in the Speaker.

The Opposition has been forced at this juncture to move a very serious motion of lack of confidence in the Speaker by the relentless bias that has been shown by the Speaker in this place over the last three years - a bias which has become increasingly evident over the last six months. We have in this place a weak and biased Speaker; a Speaker who sits in his chair up there all the time waiting for the nod from the Chief Minister, waiting for the Chief Minister to give him the eye, to give him the instructions; a Speaker who is incapable of discharging his responsibilities as the Chair of the Assembly in a fair and unbiased manner, a manner designed to promote a proper, vigorous debate and a vigorous exchange of opinions on what should be happening in the Territory and in this place.

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