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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1877 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The Chief Minister was delightfully hoist with her own petard in seeking to embarrass the Auditor-General and ended up embarrassing herself. When the Auditor wrote back to the Estimates Committee on 8 June he said, "It seems to me that, for the Bruce and CanDeliver loans to be consistent with the other loans, they should have been appropriated". That is the advice of the Auditor-General. That is very interesting, given Mr Rugendyke's position and Mr Osborne's position today that they are awaiting the Auditor-General's report before perhaps taking further action on this matter in September or October - - -

Mr Humphries: I do not think anyone is listening to you, Jon.

MR STANHOPE: I am enjoying myself, Mr Humphries. That is when Mr Osborne will bring back a motion of no confidence in the Chief Minister if the Auditor-General's report is half as bad as he, Mr Osborne, expects it to be. On the point of that comment from the Auditor-General, I do not think that there will be much sleep for the Chief Minister between now and then. The Auditor-General is saying, "It seems to me that, for the Bruce and CanDeliver loans to be consistent with the other loans, they should have been appropriated". How much plainer could Mr Parkinson be?

The pity of the position taken by Mr Osborne and Mr Rugendyke tonight - and I think that it is in a way quite cruel to the Chief Minister and perhaps not helpful to the stability of government in the ACT - is that there will be another no-confidence motion in October. That is what we are now facing if this one fails tonight; we are facing the prospect of doing this all again in 10 to 12 weeks. It would have been better for those members of this Assembly to take their responsibilities tonight. The case is made. There is no need to delay this matter another 12 weeks for Mr Osborne to carry through on his promise to take that action if the Auditor-General's report is half as bad as he expects it to be. There is an acid test for Mr Osborne and Mr Rugendyke to face in this matter if this motion is not successful tonight.

A range of other defences were put to us today. One was the "it was not my fault" defence. On 2 June, the Chief Minister said in a media release that the Government's legal advice had revealed a technical breach of the FMA. She said that the error had occurred in her department, but she regretted it and apologised for it. In her speech today, she said the mistake - note how we are rewriting the language; the mistake, not the breach of the law - was made by staff of the Office of Financial Management. We have beautifully scapegoated faceless and nameless officers in CFU. It is no longer a breach of the law; it is simply an administrative mistake. We have reduced this to a complete failure to accept any real responsibility.

We had a great dissertation from Mr Humphries on notions of ministerial responsibility. Of course, notions of ministerial responsibility are fundamental to the Westminster system. I do note that Sir Ivor Jennings was quoted with approval in a chapter in a book called The Executive State: WA Inc. and the Constitution. Sir Ivor Jennings said:

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