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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (1 July) . . Page.. 2001 ..

MR STANHOPE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. Will the Chief Minister confirm that briefing papers prepared by her office and circulated yesterday reveal that the Bruce Stadium redevelopment is running 62 per cent over budget on construction and associated one-off costs, at a total of $44.1m? Can the Chief Minister tell the Assembly what is the picture on revenue and recurrent expenditure in relation to the stadium and what will be the final cost to the Territory's bottom line of the redevelopment project?

MS CARNELL: All I can say, Mr Speaker, is: Boring! We have just spent literally hours of Assembly time, both in estimates and in this place, debating the Bruce Stadium issue. It is currently with the Auditor-General, who is doing a financial audit and a performance audit and is looking at all of these issues. Mr Speaker, the current cost of the redevelopment part of Bruce Stadium is $34.5m. I think, Mr Speaker, I have made it clear in the past that until the final bills are in for Bruce Stadium - and they are very close to being all in - you cannot give a figure right down to the last cent. Mr Speaker, when that last bill is available, I am more than happy to tell Mr Stanhope.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Stanhope?

MR STANHOPE: Yes, Mr Speaker. My supplementary question is: What impact will the Commonwealth's decision to charge the ACT full commercial rent for the stadium lease from 2009 to 2024 have on revenue and expenditure projections and what is the current state of negotiations for the possible purchase by the ACT of the stadium from the Commonwealth?

MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, I do not think that you can answer the first part of that question.

MS CARNELL: No, Mr Speaker. At some stage, I think we will need a ruling in this place about questions with multiple parts in both the first and second questions and with two questions that are not linked, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: You have just had one, Chief Minister. You cannot answer the first part because it is an expression of opinion. There is no way that you could possibly know that.

MS CARNELL: That is certainly true, Mr Speaker.

Mr Stanhope: I rise to a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was: What impact will the Commonwealth's decision to charge the ACT full commercial rent have on revenue and expenditure projections? It was a question of impact. I was not asking for dollars and cents; I was asking about the impact. On what basis did you rule it out of order?

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