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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1868 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Should members feel that more is necessary to vote for this motion than relates to the Bruce Stadium matter, members will recall the attempt by the Chief Minister to sell ACTEW, and the remaining commitment to sell ACTEW, the secret Hall/Kinlyside bungle, the massive expenditure on that hated slogan, the damage done to the tourism industry by the Floriade fee bungle, and whatever might still emerge from the decision to bomb the Canberra Hospital. These are issues that mount up. This debate is the culmination of a whole range of issues which have caused a great deal of disquiet and about which members of this Assembly should be concerned.

But let me return to this disaster of Kate Carnell's at Bruce. This imbroglio began with untrue, misleading, attention-getting "good deal for Canberra" claims that there would be mountains of private sector funding. They were the phoney claims that were made in relation to this matter. Those claims have now dramatically collapsed, leaving Territory taxpayers with a bill which will weigh them down for generations. The bill is $44m, according to the Canberra Times this morning. That leaves aside the Olympics or the upgrade of the Manuka Oval for other codes of football and cricket. It sounds to me like it is going to be close to $60m. This bungle alone, in my view and in my submission, is a good enough reason to sack this Chief Minister.

When this illegal spending started in 1997, did the Chief Minister repeat her brash, open and transparent additional appropriation which she trumpeted when her health budget blew out massively? Did she repeat that performance? No. Why not? Well, maybe she did not want to be open and transparent then. That is the immediate issue that comes to mind for me, and I think that is the basis of the issue. She knew that to spend money which was not appropriated was illegal, was against the law. She knew because she had dealt with this matter before in relation to the health budget. It was not something about which the Chief Minister had no knowledge. It was something that the Chief Minister was very familiar with. That is why we went through the additional health appropriation after that budget collapsed. So you cannot say that the Chief Minister would not know about this. It is something that she was intimately familiar with.

Mr Humphries asked us to give some evidence that there was a knowledge of the events, a knowledge of the matters which were going on, a knowledge of appropriation standards which are required under the Westminster system. There was a knowledge; there was a clear knowledge. It was demonstrated in this place with that additional Appropriation Bill, and it was breached with the Bruce Stadium debacle, knowingly breached.

Mrs Carnell now asks us to believe that this misappropriation of expenditure was some accident. "Someone slipped up", I think I heard her say, as if no-one understood the fundamental principles of parliamentary appropriation of public money. These shallow pleadings of ignorance on this issue just do not wash. The evidence in this place is clear. This is another reason, Mr Speaker, that is good enough to see the end of this Chief Minister.

Mr Humphries also asked us to give some motive for this unlawful expenditure. We all know that the unlawful expenditure began in the run-up to the 1998 election, and if exposed to the Assembly or to the community that it was going on it would have completely undermined the financial credibility of Kate Carnell and, therefore, her party's political chances in that election. We only know now that this illegal expenditure had commenced before the election.

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