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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4729 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, that is simply unbelievable. Even today Mr Whitecross is saying that Mr Berry was exonerated. Mr Berry must be the only person on earth - possibly, with Mr Whitecross, there are two such people on earth - who thinks that deals with shonky companies which have some directors who would not meet even the most basic probity checks are good ones for governments to get involved with. Mr Speaker, this is a joke. Do you remember what he said about this deal? He said it was safe and profitable for the Territory.

Unfortunately, this again shows Mr Berry's problem with balance sheets. He cannot work out whether money going out or money coming in is what we want to happen. Mr Speaker, this is where money went out; $5.3m went straight out of the ACT coffers. He said it was money for jam. There is no such thing as easy money. Unfortunately, Mr Berry did not realise that it simply does not exist. He said that this was a good deal about which every other TAB and the Opposition were jealous. Mr Speaker, three days before he announced it Mr Berry got a letter from the New South Wales Minister saying to be careful of these sorts of offshore deals. Nobody was jealous.

I will finish my answer by reminding the Assembly of what Mr Berry said in an interview on ABC radio in March 1994. I will quote him. He said this:

We've got out there among the action and worked to get a $750,000 deal for the Territory. The Liberals have done all they can to bring this undone and I hope they take some of the credit for it.

Mr Speaker, I do take some of the credit.

MS TUCKER: My question is directed to the Chief Minister and it relates to the agreement reached between the Government and NDH Construction regarding the possible redevelopment of the ROCKS area. I am still trying to get to the bottom of how this agreement came about and the involvement of the Government in this proposal. When I have asked this question of you before you have always asked Mr Humphries to answer it, but I am really asking you today. Could you tell the Assembly who initiated the proposal to move the Ethnic Communities Council and the Migrant Resource Centre out of the Griffin Centre and onto the ROCKS site? What was the involvement of the Office of Ethnic and Multicultural Affairs in the proposal to redevelop the site?

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, this is not something that I am directly responsible for; so I will have to give my understanding of what has happened, and if there is anything that is not right I will certainly correct that. As I understand it, the Migrant Resource Centre and Canberra's ethnic communities generally have been interested for some time in a new building. They do not believe that their accommodation at the moment is big enough. I understand that they got together with a builder, NDH Management, to look for a place or an area in Civic that would be appropriate for a development that could be a centre for the ethnic communities in the ACT. I understand that they had some discussions with the multicultural area of the Chief Minister's Department, which would be quite normal

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