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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (29 October) . . Page.. 2445 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

I suggest very strongly that the information that we have had given to us so far has been selective at best and pathetic at worst. It does not address quite a number of things. Furthermore, we had a blue in this chamber yesterday over the selective use of numbers. It just shows to me that we can both produce a report which says that the other is talking rot. What check have we got on which one of them is the right one? What check have we had? We have seen many people comment in the newspaper about these things, ranging from learned people to ordinary people who live in the suburbs and have wanted to express a view. We have all heard them tell us personally. What chance have they got of comparing those two reports that are diametrically opposed to each other? They have not got one. Mr Speaker, I suggest that it is incumbent upon this Assembly to make sure we get it right.

Mr Moore says he does not regard the selling of ACTEW as the most important decision taken. I did notice that the examples of better ones that he quoted actually affected his career as a politician in this place. Quite frankly, I consider that flogging off $1 billion worth of assets in this town when we have such a tiny budget is a little bit more important than Mr Moore's career, from being a rather loud-mouthed Independent into, now, a loud-mouthed member of the Government. Frankly, I had a lot of respect for Mr Moore, and I still do on quite a number of issues and on a personal level, but in this case I think he is talking absolute claptrap.

Mr Speaker, the one beautiful thing about these Assembly committees is that they contribute to the transparency of debate. They actually give us an opportunity to put everything on the table. Perhaps this Government is afraid of putting the stuff down on the table and having it checked out by those Independents, those crossbenchers who think that they have enough information. Well, I challenge the crossbenchers, and I challenge the empty seat of Mr Osborne, yet again, to come in and have it tested.

Mr Moore: Challenge it again or that his seat is empty yet again?

MR HARGREAVES: I agree with you, Mr Moore. I challenge him again. That was a bit tautological and I apologise for that. The simple fact is that if he had a commitment to the biggest decision, in my view, that this Assembly has faced in an awfully long time, he would be in this chamber and listening to the arguments. So too would the Acting Chief Minister, a shareholder in the big building across the road with a "For Sale" sign on it.

The one thing that amazed me about Assembly life when I first came into this place was the way in which the committees could become non-polarised. You could actually sit there and discuss an issue. I accept the fact that we have polarised positions on this issue, but what we do have at the end of the day is an opportunity, free of the point-scoring environment of this chamber, of putting our views in a report and saying, "This is it". If they are dissenting reports, fine, but there is an opportunity to sit down together behind closed doors, instead of behind closed doors one at a time, and to debate these things. Our committee system is not a debating chamber; it is an information retrieval system. Let us get it from out there. How about we start listening to the people out there who are really concerned about it?

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