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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4834 ..

MR SPEAKER: Members must be called by their correct names.

MRS LITTLEWOOD: I do not think I could do that; but I will continue, Mr Speaker. I refer to claims by the Leader of the Opposition this morning that the $3.3m settlement payment to VITAB by the previous Labor Government was a debt that should always have been carried by ACTTAB. Mr Berry also stated that the people who had advised you that this Government should assume that $3.3m debt instead of allowing it to remain with ACTTAB may have been deceiving you. Chief Minister, who advised you that the Government needed to take over ACTTAB's debt in the wake of the VITAB scandal?

MRS CARNELL: I thank Mrs Littlewood for the question. It certainly has been a very busy morning for Mr Berry. It is his first day back in the house and, boy, is he out there. First, on radio this morning he made the following statement:

The $3.3m was a debt that should always have been carried by ACTTAB. Both reports have made it clear that ACTTAB were the people who made the mistakes. They should have borne the responsibility of paying back to the ACT taxpayer the money that they effectively wasted.

The Carnell Government has, of course, relieved ACTTAB of the responsibility and have handed over the debt to the taxpayer. The fact of the matter is the people who made the mistake ought to pay the price and they have not.

A short time later in this Assembly Mr Berry raised the issue again and accused me of making a mistake by allowing the Government to take over responsibility for ACTTAB's debt. In fact, he even went so far as to suggest that I may have made this decision because of advice I received and that perhaps the people who were giving me the advice may have been trying to deceive me. That concerned me a lot. Do we all remember Mr Berry making that statement this morning? Yes. Good. I was very interested to hear Mr Berry make this claim, and I know that all other members are going to be very interested when I tell them who did provide me with this advice.

Mr Speaker, one of the people who provided this advice, which according to Mr Berry may have been deceitful, was the Auditor-General. A nasty piece of goods this Auditor-General! Members of the house might remember that it was not secret advice. Mr Berry should have checked his memory a little more closely this morning before he made comments about deception. Mr Speaker, I would like to table some documents to refresh Mr Berry's memory.

Mr Berry: I would like to read what I said this morning. I would not believe your version of it.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I would like to table the relevant pieces of Auditor-General's Report No. 8 of 1994.

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