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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 5010 ..

Mr Moore: Unless they have the right skills. Unless they are the right person for the job.

MRS CARNELL: Spot on. That is the point I was going to make. If they are mates, fair enough; but they must have the skills that you need to run the particular entity. It is not all right to appoint people as chairs of boards that have significant taxpayers' dollars at their fingertips if they do not have the skills required. In this case there is no doubt, according to Mr Burbidge, that both the chair and the deputy chair of the then VITAB board simply did not have the expertise to handle this entity. Madam Deputy Speaker, if it teaches us anything, it suggests that we do need board members who are accountable and who are good people who understand the business that they are involved in from a Territory perspective. I think it is also important that we do not go down the path of creating or attempting to create scapegoats for our own mistakes. I believe that yesterday the current ACTTAB board and Mr Smeed were being used as scapegoats. I do not believe that that brings any sort of credit to this place, particularly when the scapegoats simply are not in a position to defend themselves.

I know I have not spoken a whole lot about the VITAB deal, but I feel as though I have spoken about it for the last three years consistently. It was a rotten deal for the ACT. It was a deal with people who really did not have the personal credibility or the financial credibility for any government to do a deal with of any sort. It has cost the ACT Government a lot of money. It has shown that having the wrong people on boards can be very expensive. It has shown that we must have Ministers in this place who understand what a good deal is. If it is money for jam, then, on the whole, it will not be real. The fact is that there is no such thing as easy money. I think this has been a pretty rotten time for the ACT.

Having spoken to the Northern Territory Ministers yesterday, I know that they are not terribly pleased either because it was not only us who lost money. The Northern Territory TAB lost money as well because, when our TAB was cut from Victoria, theirs was too, and it cost them significant dollars. I am very pleased, though, that negotiations are well advanced and hopefully the Northern Territory might come back on track with us, but they might not as well.

Madam Deputy Speaker, this is the end, hopefully, of what has been a pretty sordid business. I hope that Mr Berry and those who were involved have learnt a lot of lessons about who you do business with and who you do not do business with.

Mr Berry: Why do you not apologise for the hospital then? Apologise for the hospital.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Berry is making a comment about the hospital. There is nobody with a list of criminal charges as long as your arm involved in the hospital. The reality is that we did a deal with people we should not have done deals with, people who had criminal records. As Mr Burbidge said, even the most cursory probity check would have picked that up. Madam Deputy Speaker, I think the bottom line here is this: Has Mr Berry learnt? What would happen if Mr Berry had total control over the treasury and total control over this Territory? Next time would he be able to tell the difference?

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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