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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4728 ..

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Hird, for the question. Mr Speaker, those opposite would think it was funny only if they could not imagine how a government could be so stupid as to enter into such an arrangement. Now, I fully agree; maybe we all should be laughing.

Mr Speaker, under this Government ACTTAB was, as members would be aware, recorporatised to place the agency on a more commercial footing. While that corporatised status has given ACTTAB and its board a greater degree of independence, its financial results since we came to government have shown clearly that the right decision was made. In answer specifically to Mr Hird's question, I can say that ACTTAB has not entered into any offshore betting deals since 1995, when we came to government. However, I was pleased to note last month that ACTTAB has entered into an agreement with South Australia to create a keno jackpot game, the first Territory-wide network to be set up in Canberra. ACTTAB Keno is now linked to South Australia's $70m a year keno system in a venture that is already returning additional revenue to ACTTAB and, through it, to the Government.

I can also confirm that no approaches have been made to ACTTAB by any offshore betting operators during our term in government, and it would not have helped if there had been. If such an approach were even considered, and I doubt that it would be, you can rest assured that, unlike the former Minister, Mr Berry, I would be ultra cautious, Mr Speaker. The world of betting and gaming in Australia has been, by its very nature, a shadowy one, and a world that governments should enter very carefully. There have been a number of royal commissions and inquiries by both the Criminal Justice Commission in Queensland and ICAC in New South Wales which have shown that the potential for fraud and deception within this industry is high. Unfortunately for the people of Canberra, Mr Berry worked this out for himself a little late. That is assuming, Mr Speaker, that he ever worked it out.

I think the issue that should concern members of this Assembly the most is the belief by Mr Berry that right up until today he has consistently maintained, namely, that the ACTTAB-VITAB contract was a good deal for Canberra. Those members who were part of this Assembly in the last Assembly would remember Mr Berry continuing to say that he was vindicated. I heard them say again today that Mr Berry was vindicated.

Mr Whitecross: Exonerated.

MRS CARNELL: I am sorry; Mr Whitecross says "exonerated". Mr Speaker, how can you be exonerated, to use Mr Whitecross's term, of a deal that cost the ACT taxpayers $5.3m and, according to the Burbidge report, would not have passed even the most basic sort of probity check? Maybe Mr Berry still believes that this was a "money for jam" deal for the ACT. He has stated over and over again, even after the Pearce inquiry - even today we heard it from those opposite - that, if it had not been for the Opposition's intervention and the decision of Victoria to expel ACTTAB from the superpool, there would have been no problems with continuing with VITAB.

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