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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4784 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

What are we talking about here? Mrs Carnell was attending a function called the Chief Minister's XI cricket match. It was named in honour of the Chief Minister. It was promoted by way of a press release from the Chief Minister's office. The media release nominated one of Mrs Carnell's private staff, paid for by the taxpayers, as the contact officer for the media release. She drove a taxpayer-funded car to the event and from the event. She crashed the government-funded car after attending this event, namely, the Chief Minister's XI match.

Yet somehow or other Mr Humphries can construct out of this sequence of events the proposition that this has nothing to do with her public duties; this has nothing to do with her responsibilities to the people of the Territory; and she should not have to answer any questions in relation to the matter in this place. Mr Humphries might have felt that in order to fight the good fight on behalf of the Liberal Party he had to get up in this place and argue that point of view, but Mr Humphries knows perfectly well that that was a perilously thin thread on which to hang the argument that this has nothing to do with the people of the ACT and that the people of the ACT have no right to be interested in the matter.

Mrs Carnell does herself and public life in the ACT no service at all by seeking to avoid scrutiny in relation to this matter. Mr Humphries, whatever his obligations to the Liberal Party room, should, after the sitting finishes today, go away and say to Mrs Carnell, "I do not think that was a very good strategy. Tomorrow I suggest you answer some questions because it would be much better if you answered some questions than continued to hide behind this paper-thin argument that this has nothing to do with the public interest". The Chief Minister's XI cricket match was promoted out of the ministerial office, with a ministerial adviser as the contact officer. She travelled to there in a government car and travelled part of the way from there in that government car.

Mr Corbell: In her capacity as Chief Minister.

MR WHITECROSS: That is right; she attended in her capacity as Chief Minister. It was a government car that she crashed. There is a clear public interest, and I do not think Mr Humphries can continue to run that argument. I am not surprised that the Government are scrabbling so hard to create diversions in relation to this matter. I am not surprised that they are throwing the mud at us about this; but we have a job to do, which is to defend the public interest. We will do that without fear or favour. We have a job to do, and we will continue to do it.

MS McRAE (5.53): If this is the worst that Mrs Littlewood has heard, then perhaps she ought to sit in different chairs every now and again and contemplate what her own colleagues say and do and listen a little more carefully to what is going on. Personal attack has never been simply focused on the Chief Minister - well do I know - and I never once heard Mrs Littlewood point out that perhaps a headline in a newspaper was a little different to the substance of the debate which I was involved in here. I did not hear Mrs Littlewood remind anyone of that. It is very easy to say, "Nasty, nasty, nasty".

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