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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 1303 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

We now discover that he did not. Regrettably for him, he did not. The point is, of course, that the reason that was advanced to us from the start was this reason - that there was something of value in what Mr Whitcombe brought to the table. It subsequently transpires that there was nothing of value in that, but the Government has constructed its entire defence of this arrangement on that fact, and that fact has fallen over. Its defence of why it allowed that situation to occur was then built on these very shaky grounds. The files will disclose that these very shaky grounds - the question of the three leases and the lack of knowledge, which I have debunked, of the status of the lease - were only dreamt up on 7 May by Annabelle Pegrum and repeated on 18 May in Annabelle Pegrum's minute to the Chief Minister. That is the fact.

We have been forced through three months of questioning. If only the Chief Minister had said at the outset that they were entering into the arrangement because it was a good arrangement. If only the Chief Minister had suggested at the outset that they entered into the arrangement with Mr Whitcombe because Mr Whitcombe was a person of certain standing and brought certain things and certain strengths to the development. If only the Chief Minister had been up front and honest about why we had entered into the development, why she had chosen Mr Whitcombe. If she had said, "We are doing it because we think it is a great idea; we are doing it because we think Mr Whitcombe is really tremendous; we are doing it because all other problems such as changes to the Territory Plan can be overcome", then we may have been satisfied. We perhaps could have been satisfied. We may have gone away satisfied and we would not have then questioned, and questioned repeatedly, on these spurious grounds, which have now been proven to be spurious, that something of value was brought and therefore we entered into the arrangement.

The whole edifice has fallen over, and it is obvious from the documents. We have Mr Humphries's letter to Mr Kearney. We have Ms Pegrum's personal minute to the Chief Minister. We have evidence of the advice provided on 11 July - specific advice, the specific details of the block. We have evidence of Mr Morgan's meeting with Mr Osborne on 25 August. (Extension of time granted)

As I said, Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister could have said straight out that Cabinet did not know the status of the leases that they took the decision on in 1997 because the leases were never a factor in making the decision, so neither she nor Cabinet had bothered to ask. She could have said that. That is in fact the fact. They were not a factor. She could have stated, as she has since, that she saw no problem with pre-empting the review of the rural residential development. She could have said that. As I said, if the Chief Minister had just answered the questions, the Assembly could have moved on. We could have debated, as I said, whether this was the best way of doing business. We could have debated whether other developers' claims - and they did exist, as we all know they did exist, and Mr Humphries actually dismissed the last of those on 9 January, I think, to Woden Constructions, and in doing so promised an open process in the development of rural residential in the Kinlyside area - - -

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