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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (28 May) . . Page.. 715 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

of Mr Whitcombe from the exclusive preliminary agreement or contract - the stated reason is that it was discovered that Mr Whitcombe had authority to negotiate over only lease 630, and not leases 495 and 629 as the Government had thought - is completely without substance?

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I have answered bits of this question often, but I will do it again. Mr Whitcombe came to the Government with three leases in his possession. In fact, he actually had the three leases. On the basis of those three - - -

Mr Corbell: He did not have them in his possession. He is not the leaseholder.

Mr Stanhope: He had bits of paper.

MS CARNELL: Yes, he had the bits of paper, the lease documents, in his possession. The Government entered into a preliminary agreement with Mr Whitcombe to work through such things as planning, environment, and the financial basis of the proposed joint venture. On working through those issues, Mr Speaker, it became evident that two of those lease documents were no longer valid as the leases had been passed back to the Government in 1991. On the basis that Mr Whitcombe had come to the Government with three leases, or supposedly three leases, and he now had only one, which was on a month-to-month basis, Mr Whitcombe withdrew from the preliminary agreement and it was determined by the Government that we would go to a tender process, or a selective tender process, for rural residential development in the Hall area.

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Justice and Community Safety, Mr Humphries. Could the Minister tell the parliament which State government has recently announced that it will spend $55m on safety cameras to make its public transport system a safer system?

Ms Carnell: What government could that be?

MR HUMPHRIES: That is a very good question, Mr Hird and Chief Minister. I know that we have had this debate ad nauseam in the ACT so far and there are still people being dragged kicking and screaming into the latter part of the twentieth century. I was very pleased to note that one State government announced on Sunday that it will spend $55m on a comprehensive safety camera system throughout its CityRail network. Well may you ask which government it was, Mr Hird. Which of the many right-wing administrations around the nation took this draconian step to squash the civil liberties of its citizens? Was it Premier Kennett of Victoria? No, Mr Speaker, it was not. Was it Mr Court in Western Australia?

Opposition members interjected.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear the Minister's answer, and if I cannot hear it he will have to repeat it.

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