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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 1279 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

Mr Humphries, in fact, has made it clear that he did know about it. Let us go back to the debate on 28 May. This is what Mr Humphries said as reported in Hansard. I thought that Mr Humphries - perhaps I read a bit into it - was a bit disconcerted when Mr Stanhope raised this this morning. On page 765 of Hansard for this year - I am quoting a sentence within a paragraph - Mr Humphries said this:

She made reference to Mr Whitcombe, because they were the block numbers of the three leases he brought in to the Chief Minister's office and put on her table.

Now, Mr Humphries says he did not know anything about leases and he is confused between leases and blocks. But it is even more disconcerting than that because, if you go back to the uncorrected proof copy of Hansard, this is what is attributed to Mr Humphries, and I quote at the same spot:

She made reference to Mr Whitcombe because they were the three blocks he brought in to the Chief Minister's office and put on her table - and put on her table.

Someone changed "three blocks" to "the block numbers of the three leases". Mr Humphries cannot now say that this was all confusion to him, because there has been a careful, deliberate change. Someone knew about it, and I wait for Mr Humphries's explanation of this when he gets up to speak. Was it Hansard who made the change for greater precision? I would doubt that. That was clear enough there. Did Mr Humphries, in his office, later, amend that, as we all get the opportunity to do, or did Mr Forshaw do it for him? But, that is a very telling little statement about that. I think Mr Humphries has clearly misled this Assembly, and those changes there show it. There is no question about that, and I am pleased that he has gone off to check that out. He will need to. I want to see at some stage in this Assembly the uncorrected proof Hansard that Mr Humphries's office returned to Hansard to see who changed that, and we might pursue that further down the track.

If Mr Humphries says, "I did not know", let us look at the letter that was also quoted today that he wrote to Mr Bill Kearney of the Hall Progress Association on 14 August. I quote the key sentence:

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

Debate interrupted.

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