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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1838 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

who has acted contrary to the law or do we not? We are not only dealing with that question on our own behalf; we are dealing with that question on behalf of 300,000 Canberrans. I can do no better than to quote our Speaker, Mr Cornwell. He said, "This place must be beyond reproach". Dead right. He is absolutely right. The chief executive of this place must, of all people, be beyond reproach. Mr Cornwell got it right.

There has been a lot of debate today. It has been going on for 41/2 hours or more already. There has been some repetition, but since I am, with the exception of Mr Humphries and Mr Rugendyke, the last speaker, I think some of that material bears repetition. What are the facts of this case? We have heard the arguments for and against the proposition that the Chief Minister has acted unlawfully. She maintains she has not; the Opposition maintains she has. Well, what are the facts? I think they are simple enough and they are clear enough, despite the rhetoric from members of the Government.

During the year 1997-98 the Carnell Government spent more than $9.7m on the Bruce Stadium redevelopment project which had not been appropriated through the budget processes of this place. In the 1997-98 financial year that led them to the result that on the last day of the year they were $9.7m approximately short in their books, and they borrowed the money and repaid it the next day. Why did the Government do that? Why did they bother borrowing the money and replacing it the next day if everything was open and above board? It was not open and above board at the time, and it took some time after that day, 30 June, for even the beginnings of the truth to emerge about Bruce Stadium.

The Chief Minister talks about openness and transparency. She was not open and transparent right from that point. She had to do what she did because a private sector funding deal which she had been trying to arrange had fallen through. As an article in the Australian Financial Review on 4 June this year pointed out, the money was illegally advanced to the Bruce Stadium people "when the Government was unable to secure a private investor to help underwrite the redevelopment of the stadium, the cost of which has blown out to $33m". Of course, that was only a month ago, when it had not yet been publicly acknowledged by the Chief Minister that $32m was not the figure. We are only talking about less than a month ago.

A bit of propaganda put out selectively by the Chief Minister only yesterday to selective members of the media provides information that has not even today been put on the table by the Government and that is, as revealed in the Canberra Times this morning, that the total cost of this project is now $44m, not $32m, not even the $34.5m that the Chief Minister is now acknowledging. It is $44m. When did the Chief Minister put that on the table? She still has not, and she talks about openness and transparency.

The Government's error that they fell into in 1997-98 was compounded during the financial year 1998-99, this current financial year just ending, when a further $14.3m was spent on the stadium project without appropriation. Again this Assembly was not informed. We only find these things out when we act like a dentist and get in there with the forceps and start pulling things out.

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