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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2242 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

even have a Chief Minister saying, "Boring, boring". We might even have a Chief Minister on ABC radio laughing to the public of Canberra about this particular issue.

Ms Carnell: By the way, I did not laugh.

MR QUINLAN: It did not go down well, mate. At the bottom line, I guess we cannot support this Bill. It is part of a retrospective legitimisation of illegal behaviour. I do not care about the technicalities at this stage but, morally, what was happening at Bruce Stadium should have been brought to this place a long time before it was, but a great ego could not allow that to happen. We had to find a way to get around admitting not that we had messed up a little but that we had totally messed up. I am fairly certain that we have not heard the bottom line of just how bad this particular exercise has been. I cannot emphasise it enough. This has been the most appalling ineptitude - - -

Ms Carnell: It is boring, Ted. You have said the same thing 4,000 times and it is wrong.

MR QUINLAN: But if you speak the truth 4,000 times and it falls on deaf ears, selectively deaf ears, and you speak it again, it still is the truth. This has been the most appalling ineptitude on behalf of a government that told the people of Canberra, "Your commitment is $12.3m. We are going to borrow another $7m but we are going to pay that back". That was a total of $19m. We are now in the realm of $50m. This is our Opera House.

I challenge the Chief Minister, when she rises to close this debate, to tell us the absolute bottom line for the Bruce Stadium development. I challenge her to tell us how much it has cost and how much Bruce Operations Pty Ltd might borrow to cover the accoutrements of the Bruce Stadium, which I believe are part of the assets.

Mr Osborne: What does that mean?

Mr Stanhope: Seats.

MR QUINLAN: Ask the guy who knows everything.

Mr Osborne: You try to big-note yourself and use big words all the time.

MR QUINLAN: I only know three, so I just have to whip them in. Most of us have in front of us a government distribution paper, spawned of a certain acrimony on the second floor, that says, "This thing cost $44m. We have just put in another $5m worth of working capital". Convince us that you need $5m working capital for a cash business. You have to be kidding.

Ms Carnell: Convincing you is a task I would not even attempt.

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