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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 1281 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

That this Assembly censures the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister for deliberately or recklessly misleading the Assembly in relation to the Hall/Kinlyside development.

Let us get on to "recklessly misleading". What did Mr Moore say? He spoke of some principles that I think have been generally accepted by this Assembly. This is what he said on 12 April 1994 in the no-confidence motion moved against Mr Berry. This is a fairly long quote. I will give it to you. Listen carefully. Mr Moore said this:

One of the most important parts of this motion is that it deals not just with deliberate misleading of the Assembly but also with reckless misleading of the Assembly. It is not good enough, when we are talking about a reckless misleading, to say, "I did not know". It is not good enough to say, "Well, that was my advice". It is not good enough, Mr Stevenson, -

to whom he was particularly addressing this -

that something was done in an inadvertent manner when there was a responsibility to know.

I repeat, "when there was a responsibility to know". Mr Moore went on:

It is not good enough when somebody is working just on the advice of their own advisers when they had a responsibility to know. That would be reckless.

I heartily support those remarks. I have no doubt that Mr Moore will repeat them before this debate is over and before he votes in support of Mr Stanhope's motion. There is no question about that. He has set the pattern for describing what recklessly misleading the house is about.

Let us remember something else about Mr Moore. I could not find this in Hansard. It is there somewhere, and if challenged I will have to dig it out. In a debate he thumped himself on the breast and said, "Well, I have higher standards than everybody else". He was going to oppose something because it did not relate so much to standards of the parliament but to his standard which was so much higher. He was being very pious about that. The question on an issue as important as this is that the Government ought to have known.

Ms Carnell: Ought to have known what?

MR WOOD: Ought to have known what? Ought to have known about these blocks and leases - simple basic stuff. It is simple basic stuff, Chief Minister, that Mr Stanhope carefully pointed out this morning. We do know the difference between blocks and leases. Mr Humphries was planning Minister for how long? He held the position for 31/2 years or so.

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