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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (13 October) . . Page.. 3068 ..

Mr Hird: Mr Speaker, I am trying to listen to the answer.

MR SPEAKER: I know. Order!

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, you will recall the famous ACTEW spreadsheet that was jointly produced by the offices of Mr Berry and Mr Quinlan. Remember that one? Mr Berry defended its accuracy for weeks until Mr Quinlan finally admitted that it was a stuff-up. In this case, what Mr Corbell did was search the wrong company. It is that simple. That is right; he searched the wrong company. Instead of searching the Australian - - -

Members interjected.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, this question has gone on for 15 minutes now.

MR SPEAKER: That is correct, and it will go on further if we continue to have these interjections. It will be a very long, drawn out question, to everybody's discomfort perhaps.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, he searched the wrong company. Instead of searching the Australian Vee Eight Supercar Company, he searched AVESCO, another company that had been registered by the Australian Racing Drivers Club based at Eastern Creek Raceway in 1996. Had he contacted the ARDC, he would have found out that the company had been voluntarily deregistered by the organisation simply because they were not using the name.

Mr Corbell: I knew that.

MS CARNELL: He said that he knew that.

Mr Corbell: I knew they were voluntarily deregistered. I said that yesterday.

MS CARNELL: The wrong company though, Mr Speaker. If he had bothered checking by ringing the company that he thought he was searching, he would have found out. If he had checked the list of directors of the company, he would have found out that they were not the same directors as the directors of the Australian Vee Eight Supercar Company.

If Mr Corbell had done any work whatsoever, he would have found out that he was wrong. He did not do his basic homework, and he thought he could throw a couple of hand grenades into a public forum and get away with it. Let me quote from Mr Corbell's media release issued yesterday. He said:

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