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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1798 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

The Chief Minister has been hiding behind public servants - "They broke the law, not me". The same Chief Minister has manipulated other matters so that public servants have been in the crossfire of debate, and then has oozed pious outrage that they might be impugned indirectly in a debate. That is fairly corrupt action as far as I am concerned.

The next defence is that the end justifies the means. We have to ask ourselves whether we have got value for our money, for taxpayers' money. Combine Bruce Stadium and Manuka Oval and we are over $53m. If we were starting from scratch, would we come up with the present solution? Would we split our resources over two facilities? Manuka Oval has a beautiful setting. It is a beautiful oval in the older tradition. Is that ambience and that sense of history going to be sacrificed on the altar of Mrs Carnell's appalling judgment, insatiable ego, and propensity to be led by the nose by merchant bankers and international consultants? Is there any guarantee that the populace will stand for the installation of high-mast lighting at Manuka? Or will it become a second-class facility without the beauty that it now has? Bruce is a pretty good stadium. It has design faults and it could not possibly stack up to the superlatives that have been thrown at it by this Government, but it is pretty good. It is also fairly clear that with good management it could have been a little cheaper and a lot more flexible. The end does not necessarily justify the means. If you have got to spend $53m in doing up ovals in this town, I think you should bring that sort of decision to the Assembly, to the parliament.

In the course of this debate we have had other deceptions. We have had the Cayman Islands financing nonsense. That arrangement was simply preposterous. In estimates, the Chief Minister brought in a map of the arrangements for Stadium Australia with boxes all over it and said, "Look, how complex is it?". The one she brought in has the Coca-Cola franchise on it. It had nothing to do with shareholdings and financing. Again, it was an insult to our intelligence and an attempt to confuse.

In summary, Mr Speaker, none of the defences, excuses, rationalisations or downright misinformation stand any degree of scrutiny. The net appropriation defence did not stand the light of day, so we moved on. The technical breach defence - technical breach, $25m of unapproved expenditure! - does not stand up in any way. You spent $44m. The reliance on section 38, the investment process, was debunked by the Auditor-General in estimates a couple of weeks ago. As to the end justifying the means, we have no proof that we have got the best value for our dollars, and time may condemn us or the Government for building a stadium that has alienated Australian rules and cricket.

I repeat the observation that Mr Stanhope has made several times. This is not about a change in government; this is about the Chief Minister. The change of government bit is poker playing on your part, although, as I mentioned earlier, I do agree with your self-assessment. Mr Humphries should resign as Deputy Chief Minister if he is not prepared to step up. It is about the integrity of the Chief Minister and the integrity of the Government. It has been about the breakdown of integrity in this whole process. It has been about the whole framework of contrived get-out clauses, all of which have failed one by one. They were bound to fail. If you commit $25m of the taxpayers' money and you have not got approval, there is really not much you can do to justify it. Yes, I do believe that there was deliberate intent on the part of the Chief Minister and I commend the motion.

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