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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (26 May) . . Page.. 562 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

The Chief Minister said something of the same sort just a few minutes ago. Minister, I ask you how then you explain this letter to the president of the Hall and District Progress Association, Mr Kearney, written on 14 August last year, as the then Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning, in which you said:

I understand the Boltons' lease is over the area now known as Block 630 ... and is leased on a month to month basis.

You were talking in August last year about one block. What happened that you discovered that, or rediscovered that, only a week or so ago? You have an inconsistency there. Will you explain it?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, on this occasion the Opposition reminds me a little bit of my dog which occasionally finds an old bone in the garden, digs it up, shakes it off, gets all the dirt off it, gives it a good lick, puts it back in the ground, leaves it for a few more weeks and then comes back. Frankly, the whole thing stinks after a while. I have to say on this occasion that this particular matter ought to be buried, Mr Speaker. It ought to have been buried quite some time ago. I have the letter to which Mr Wood refers in front of me. What Mr Wood may not have in front of him is the letter from Mr Kearney, the president of the so-called Hall and District Progress Association, to which I was replying - a letter of 27 July. In that letter - and I will table this in a moment - Mr Kearney asked me:

Could you please advise us of:

... ... ...

the status of the lease of the Bolton Farm "Hillview" (I believe that the farm is located at Block 496 Gungahlin);

... ... ...

My response was drafted, of course, by my then department and I responded to the question he asked. I said:

I understand the Boltons' lease is over the area now known as Block 630 -

that is the block previously known as 496 -

(as shown on the attached plan) and is leased on a month to month basis.

So I was responding precisely, Mr Speaker, to the question Mr Kearney asked me, and that is why I have referred to it in that way. I table the letters referred to.

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