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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1792 ..
MS CARNELL (continuing):
24 November 1998, knowing, as it did very well, that the loan had been produced, that it had come from the Commonwealth Bank, that the money had been made available via the CFU. It was all on the record and it all went to the Estimates Committee.
Mr Speaker, in Report No. 9 of 1998, which was released in December, the Auditor-General detailed on pages 51 and 55 the Bruce Stadium transactions, including the loan. He concluded that the responsible agency had managed both its departmental and territorial operations to its budget. The Auditor-General's Report No. 9 was then scrutinised by the Chief Minister's Portfolio Standing Committee, chaired by Mr Quinlan. Mr Kaine was a member of that committee. The committee's report was tabled in the Assembly on 22 April this year and no reference or recommendation was made about the legality or otherwise of the transaction. In fact, Mr Speaker, I understand that all that was said was that the Auditor-General was looking at it.
Additionally, on 30 November last year, the Auditor-General provided an unqualified audit to the Assembly on the consolidated annual financial accounts of the Territory for 1997-98. Included in those statements is a statement of appropriations for the financial year which showed that the appropriation covering Bruce Stadium which had been approved by the Legislative Assembly had not been exceeded. So, the Auditor-General himself indicated that the appropriation covering Bruce Stadium which had been approved by the Legislative Assembly had not been exceeded.
In 1997-98 the draft capital works program was scrutinised during public hearings by the then Standing Committee on Planning and Environment. No formal recommendations relating to Bruce Stadium were made by that committee. The 1998-99 draft capital works program was also scrutinised via a similar process and no mention was made by the Urban Services Committee of the disclosed expenditure on Bruce Stadium. Put simply, to suggest, as the ALP have done, that these arrangements were hidden is absolutely ludicrous. Mr Speaker, the paper trail is as long as your arm, as I am sure that those opposite are finding out now that they have boxes and boxes of pieces of paper. It is also true, Mr Speaker, that quite a number of committees of this place have scrutinised the Bruce Stadium financing deals.
Mr Speaker, in summary, it is important to quote from a briefing note that was sent to me in late May following the receipt of the legal advice from Mr Tracey. The note, from senior officers within both the Chief Minister's Department and the Department of Justice and Community Safety, provides an excellent summary of the events surrounding the financing transaction. In part, it says:
In the course of examining the transactions associated with Bruce Stadium, senior counsel has concluded that everything the Government did, it could have done legally. However, the Government has been let down by defects in some of the administrative processes used to implement its objectives.
In this respect, the normally high standards of administration and process control achieved by the Chief Minister's Department have not been met. It is not so much that officers have acted without diligence or improperly but that they relied on long-standing practices of, ultimately, dubious legal value.
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