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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (13 October) . . Page.. 3076 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

agree, are made publicly, Mr Speaker. What we have asked Mr Corbell to do is exactly what Mr Smyth did: Get up in this place on the public record in front of the media and apologise.

MS TUCKER: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I will not ask whether this could be a vagary of the Assembly. Instead, let me say that this is on the public record last night on television. Whether or not the media were listening, Mr Smyth has made a false and misleading statement on television. My question still stands. The Chief Minister needs to apply the same standards to her own Ministers. Will she ask him to retract on that same television broadcasting channel and make the correct statement?

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I will answer it again. Those are the rules for my Ministers, without doubt. The moment they know there is a problem, they must get up in public - all of us - and correct the record. That is exactly what Mr Smyth did. I am sorry that I cannot dictate to the media - I would love to - what they run and what they do not run. We all try, but we cannot dictate. The best we can do - and all I have asked Mr Corbell to do - is correct the record, stand up in this place and apologise.

Mr Kaine: Well, ask your Minister to do the same thing.

MS CARNELL: I have, and he did it. He did so on the record yesterday.

Mr Kaine: No, he has not.

Mr Stanhope: Has he been out to Prime today?

MS CARNELL: He has done it already. It is on the record.

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Urban Services. Minister, I remind you of your recent actions in allowing CityScape to dismiss teams of people with disabilities. Have a further three teams of workers with disabilities, employed through the Jobmatch program, now been placed on monthly contracts instead of yearly contracts?

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, I will have to find out what stage the contracts are at, and I will answer the member's question when I have that information.

MR HARGREAVES: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I am surprised the Minister does not know the answer to that, because it has already been published. Will the Minister shortly claim, therefore, when he does find out, that the workers are dispensable because the contracts have expired, as you did last time, or will you take a caring approach and see that these workers continue in fulfilling and useful work?

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, when I get the answer to the first part of the question, I will be able to answer the second part.

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