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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (28 October) . . Page.. 2373 ..

Mr Hargreaves: It is the Regulator-General.

MR MOORE: If it is the Regulator-General, Mr Hargreaves, then, clearly, Mr Corbell has misled this Assembly. Mr Corbell is saying it was not the Regulator-General he was quoting; it was actually a member from Victoria that he was quoting. He just said it was the Regulator-General because there was this double source. The source he was quoting is the member in Victoria, Peter Loney. In fact he was the one who had selectively drawn his information. Quite clearly, when you double-check with the Regulator-General, he had very selectively drawn the facts.

When you look at the information there and you plot it on a graph, it is quite clear, particularly if you go back over the previous nine or 10 years. You can see that there has been a significant improvement in outages. What Mr Corbell was trying to do was to convince this Assembly that just the opposite was the case, and he used the one hiccup in the system to create that impression. It seems to me that we have a serious situation in this Assembly, as we always have, where members, in getting very enthusiastic about a particular issue, from this side or that side - - -

Mr Corbell: Please, do not be patronising.

MR MOORE: Mr Corbell, you say, "Do not be patronising". Mr Corbell, you have a degree. When you prepare a matter you know very well that selective quoting is the fastest way to wind up with a very poor piece of work. Indeed, the least of this would be a poor piece of work. The reality is that you used this as a method to try to persuade this Assembly, all members of this Assembly, that we should be taking a certain approach to ACTEW because of such bad results. The reality is exactly the opposite in relation to what you are quoting. Mr Humphries said to you, Mr Corbell, that all you have to do is say, "I am sorry for the extent to which I have misled the Assembly", and the matter is finished.

Mr Corbell: I did not mislead.

MR MOORE: It is as simple as that. It is no good to say now that you did not mislead the Assembly because you indicate here that it was the Office of the Regulator-General where you got your information. Now you are saying to us, "No, it is not. Actually, I got it from a secondary source that was referring to the Office of the Regulator-General". You know quite well what the situation is. This morning, as I understand it, Mr Humphries went to you and said to you, "This is the problem we have. Why do you not do something about it?". You could easily have stood up in this chamber and said, "Okay, I realise. I have gone back to the Regulator-General, looked at the figures and - - -

Mr Corbell: Mr Humphries came to me with that. He did not come to me with this other one. He came to me with that, Michael, and you should know that. These figures are not consistent with the figures from the Regulator-General. You are wrong.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, you have spoken already.

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