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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1809 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

It was some time ago that we heard Mr Stanhope talking in a speech about the killer blow that he was about to deliver. I think we all remember that. I think he left his notes upstairs on the day or something. To have a killer blow today you have to have evidence. You just cannot stand up and say, "She's guilty", or, "They're guilty". It does not work like that because we are a democracy.

Let us look at what sort of killer blow Mr Stanhope should have delivered today. Perhaps one of the members of the Labor Party who will speak to this motion later will deliver the killer blow. But what sort of killer blow would we want? What we need is a piece of paper, Mr Speaker, from a senior bureaucrat - we are all interested in senior bureaucrats today - that said something like this: "Chief Minister, despite the previous advice to Cabinet, to proceed with the financing of Bruce Stadium in the way suggested would require a breach of the Financial Management Act". Mr Quinlan, Mr Stanhope, Mr Wood and the rest of the Labor Party would have you believe that that is what happened, and that across the top of such a furphy piece of paper the Chief Minister had written, "Just do it", and we would do it to spite ourselves. But where is this evidence? Where is this killer punch? Where is this blow that will prove the case?

Mr Speaker, there is no such thing because it does not exist. There is no evidence. In any case like this what you must prove is that there was intent. As Mr Stefaniak did so ably this morning, you must back that up with evidence. Why? Because that is how the system works. We do not run this chamber as a star chamber, which is what Ted Quinlan is trying to do. We do not run this chamber as a kangaroo court. This is Jon Stanhope's personal kangaroo court. That is all we have here today. They want lynchings without evidence. It is wonderful, Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, given the technical nature of the breach of the Financial Management Act, there was simply no reason to deliberately go out and breach the Act. There was no reason. The Government's legal advice makes this clear and essentially states that the Bruce transaction could have been undertaken lawfully but it was not, due to faults in the process. It also points out that the process could easily have been satisfied. All that was required, according to the Government's legal advice, was that a guideline was in place determining that the investment in Bruce was permissible.

If the Government believed that that was all that was required, then such a guideline would have been drawn up quickly and with little fuss; but, Mr Speaker, the guideline was not prepared. Why was that? Because the need for the guideline was overlooked by officers from the Central Financing Unit. This was a mistake. It was a simple mistake. It was an honest mistake. It was a mistake that the Government, through the Chief Minister, has not only acknowledged but has apologised for. It is a mistake that the Chief Minister has taken responsibility for. She has not walked away from it. She has said, "We understand. We know that the mistake has been made". Mr Speaker, it was not a deliberate act designed to break the law. It was an inadvertent omission, but an omission nonetheless. It was inadvertent. There was no intention to break the law.

Mr Quinlan has failed to give us any evidence. He said, "I believe that the Chief Minister did intend to break the law". But where is the evidence? When asked for evidence, what was the answer? There was no answer. How do we know this? Because he simply resorts to the ALP debating manual. What does the ALP debating manual say? It is probably a New South Wales Right edition. It says, "Kick the living daylights

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