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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4655 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I want to raise some issues of concern to me about the dynamics and operation of the Government in the last few weeks of this Assembly. It seems to me that Mr Humphries, the Minister for the Environment, was not particularly keen on the environmental protection that was being proposed by his Government at Fairbairn Park. Indeed, it seemed that the spokesperson when it came to environmental protection and noise at Fairbairn Park was not Mr Humphries but was the Minister for Sport, Mr Stefaniak.

Mr Humphries: He is very articulate. He is a very capable representative of the views of the Government.

MR CORBELL: He is a very capable representative on environment issues, it seems. Well, Gary, why do you not just hand the baton over to him entirely? We could have a lot more fun with him. Mr Speaker, the messages that came out of the Government when it came to noise protection at Fairbairn Park were absolutely bizarre. In one instance we had Mr Stefaniak saying, "This will be the regulation"; but messages that came from Mr Humphries's office, including from a member of Mr Humphries's staff, indicated to me that Mr Humphries wanted a completely different outcome from the one that the Government was proposing. Indeed, he wanted the outcome, it seemed to me, that the Labor Party managed to broker on the floor of this Assembly today.

I know that Mr Humphries will feign indifference on this issue and suggest that this is grossly unfair of me. It was such a bizarre situation that we had representatives of the Motorsport Council coming to us and saying, "The Government has agreed to amend its own regulation", and then, when I spoke to Mr Humphries, he said, "No, no; we are going ahead with the regulation as it is. No; we are going to amend it. No; we are going to change it". Even at the very last minute, Mr Speaker, representatives from the Motorsport Council were saying, "The Government want you to amend their regulations so that they can support it". Mr Humphries wanted us to amend their regulation so that they could support it. What a bizarre situation, Mr Speaker!

Anyone who has had their ear anywhere close to the ground over the past week knows that there has been an incredible amount of infighting in the Government on this issue. They have failed to resolve the issue of Fairbairn Park. They have confused the Motorsport Council and the Ridgeway residents completely. No-one knows where they are coming from on the issue. Is it any surprise, Mr Speaker, that, in the end, both sides of the argument turn to the Labor Party to get a sensible compromise and a sensible position on the issue? That is exactly what we delivered.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (7.42): Mr Speaker, there are two issues that I would like to speak about briefly. One follows directly from Mr Corbell's comments. I want to mention to the house tonight that today the Liberal Party had two Bills on which we did not have a party position. There were two free votes today. That is something that we will be doing more often, Mr Speaker.

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