Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (14 October) . . Page.. 3201 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

three, it comes down to about 10. So, in the time that Mr Stanhope's urgent, special, important and far-reaching investigative committee has done nothing, the Urban Services Committee has brought down probably 10 reports.

It is all about what Mr Stanhope set this committee up to achieve. I am sure that we can all remember the day when he got up on his high horse on it. He was going to get to the bottom of a matter. He was going to look at contracts and procurement. He was going to make sure that no stone was left unturned so that he could reveal the inadequacies of the Government. To conduct an inquiry you have to start turning a few stones, but we have not seen any stone turning at all. Mr Stanhope runs the real risk of becoming "Gunna" Stanhope because all we have heard from him is what he is gunna do. Mr Hargreaves jumped to his defence and said that you need extra time to get the data. You have had five months to get the data and all you have done is think about going about getting some data.

It is curious that Mr Hargreaves' definition of a little bit of extra time is, in fact, more time than the original committee asked for. The committee originally asked for some eight months in which to report - May to December. It is now asking for an extension of 10 months. It is amazing; it will actually go up to almost 15 months, doubling the time for this committee to report. It is curious that Mr Stanhope chooses to ignore all of that, that all he can do is just ignore it. To get the data you have to do something. All we have heard so far from "Gunna" Stanhope is that he has a list. It is like the Monty Python skit: "I have got an idea. It is my idea. It is an idea which is mine". He is saying, "I have an inquiry. It is my inquiry. It is an inquiry which I have. I have a list. I have a list of people I might ring. I will ring them. I will talk to them eventually".

But that is not what it is about, Mr Speaker. It is about doing the job. When you ask for it to be set up and say, "I will do the job and I will take the stipend that comes with it", the additional funds, you are meant to do the job. You are not meant to sit on your hands, as Mr Rugendyke so eloquently put it, and say, "I will wait five months before I decide to publish a list of things that I am gunna do". "Gunna" Stanhope really is not matching the others. At least Mr Berry has not asked for more time for his select committee on workers compensation. Maybe we will get a request for that as well. The setting up of a select committee was rejected by Mr Rugendyke at the time and we supported his proposal that it should go to a standing committee. That is what the standing committees are for. It is more than appropriate that it be done in that way.

Mr Stanhope, what we have is just an empty list of action or a list of inaction and I think that you ought to be embarrassed by having to stand up here and say, "I need an extra 10 months to do this list of things that I have just thought of because I have not been able to do anything at all about it in the last five months". Mr Speaker, you have only to remember the impassioned words on that day about how he was going to get to the bottom of this, how he was going to call in all these people and make them tell the truth. He is still going to do it. He is going to do it some time and he is asking for more time to do it. He says that he is going to do something, but how do we know that he will, given that in five of the eight months he has not done anything? When we get to the end of the 15 months, what will we get then? Who knows?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .