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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (5 May) . . Page.. 1345 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

refused a copy of the business plan "because I do not think it is appropriate". That is how far we have come. That is from the Chief Minister, I think - "I do not think it is appropriate".

Of late we have seen figures published in the media. I think - let me stress that: I think - yesterday the Chief Minister refuted those numbers but stopped short of giving us the real numbers. She stopped a whole lot short of giving us the actual numbers on the expectations upon which we have committed substantial amounts of taxpayers' money. We would like to get that sort of information undiluted by the spin that we so often get from the Government. I am interested in the gross numbers and I am interested in the relativities of those numbers. Mr Stanhope mentioned some of them in his speech and I do not need to repeat them, but they do look quite odd, to say the least.

I have had a limited briefing from the Auditor-General regarding his audit and his reservations regarding the financial transactions, particularly borrowings regarding the Bruce Stadium and the rolling up of the Bruce Stadium Trust financial report into the department of whatever it was - everything that ended with "Industrial Relations" - which in fact did not exist by virtue of changes in Administrative Arrangements on 1 June 1998 when the Bruce Stadium Trust was created. For some reason the Government saw fit to roll them up together, probably so that they could get the result that we did not quite notice the import of some of the footnotes which were inserted in those accounts at the behest of the Auditor-General. He informed me that he had sought a legal opinion in relation to the actions taken by government in balancing the books at 30 June 1998.

The Auditor-General, as befits his role, was quite circumspect in the briefing that I received, but I certainly came away with the impression that he had received the bureaucratic run-around on the legal opinion that he sought. That is symptomatic of this Government's unwillingness to provide this people's house with information about what it is doing with the people's money, even in the new atmosphere of openness.

I was very flattered to rate so many mentions in the Chief Minister's speech. Let me say for the record that I have faith in the Auditor-General, but the indications in relation to this fiasco are such that I think the taxpayers have a right to expect us also to fully exercise our responsibilities to them and to become fully informed.

I expect that the Auditor-General's expertise and the expertise that he is able to avail himself of will be complementary to the information that, quite rightly, should be provided to the elected representatives of the people of Canberra. I will be very glad, in the fullness of time, to receive the benefit of the Auditor-General's view of the process - all of the processes, I guess. But I think it is also necessary, given all the symptoms that prevail, that the Assembly be fully informed and be able to make some judgments about the judgments made by this Government in relation to the Bruce Stadium development. If as the Chief Minister has said there are no secrets, indulge us. Just make the information available. If there are no secrets, there is no problem. I would infer from what the Chief Minister says that she supports the motion, as I do.

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