Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 427 ..

MR HARGREAVES: My supplementary question is: Since the staff at CityScape were told by management that to achieve benchmarking levels they had to lose one of their six contracts, can the Minister guarantee, I would suggest through transmission-of-business clauses, that no CityScape staff involved in the cleaning and maintenance of the Woden and Weston areas will lose their jobs because of the letting of this contract to Excell?

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, CityScape had planned for 12 permanent employees and some temporary employees, some part-time employees, to take care of that contract. Having not won the contract, CityScape will now have to look at the future of those employees, and there may be redundancies.

MR BERRY: My question is to the Attorney-General. How is it that the Minister attacks the ANU student magazine Woroni for its tongue-in-cheek approach to drink-driving and expresses strong opposition to drink-driving when he has said nothing about the message to the community from his own Chief Minister's driving habits? Noting that it was the Attorney-General's office which prior to the last ACT election issued the statement that the Chief Minister had crashed, what, if any, advice did the Attorney's office or the Attorney give the Chief Minister on how to avoid police scrutiny?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I do not mind hard-hitting questions in this place. I do not mind questions that have a bit of strong curry for the Government. But questions like Mr Berry's are not clever. They do not probe any particular political value. They just rummage in the dirt. The Chief Minister has already fully explained what occurred in that particular incident. If Mr Berry had any guts, which we know he has not, he would go outside the chamber and suggest that the Chief Minister was drinking and driving. Of course, he is not prepared to do that, because he is a coward. He also loves to play in the dirt.

Mr Stanhope was quick to defend Mr Berry about the outrageous things said about him during the 1998 election campaign, saying, "Mr Berry is a man who was attacked unfairly. They suggested that he was not economically competent to manage the ACT". Mr Speaker, if that is what he does, is it any wonder that he attracts the sort of criticism, mild by comparison, he did in the 1998 election.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. I would not mind it if the Attorney had a go at answering the question in terms of the standing orders. I wonder whether you could draw his attention to that.

MR SPEAKER: I am at the moment - - -

Mr Berry: I have not finished yet, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you could draw his attention to standing order 118(a)?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .