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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3550 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, there is no need to comment further in this debate on the criminality theme of Mr Madden's report. On this side of the Assembly, we accept the coroner's findings in respect of the criminality issue. Unfortunately - and I hope that this is not true - I anticipate that there will be others in this place who will argue that we are at odds with the coroner, that we are somehow trying to tie the Chief Minister to the personal or direct responsibility for the death that the coroner says does not exist.

The signs of this foreboding are already evident in the language of some members of the Government in the weeks since the coroner brought down his findings. Despite that, it is not Labor who will debase the seriousness of this debate with unfounded and unsupportable innuendo. That said, we do not resile from our contention that, in discharging the second of his obligations, Mr Madden has sealed the fate of the Chief Minister.

As Mr Madden pointed out in the executive summary of his findings, the coroner has the discretion to comment on any matter connected with the death that is the subject of his inquest, quite apart from any recommendations that he might make to the Attorney-General. Mr Madden availed himself of that discretion and, in so doing, guaranteed the inevitability of Assembly scrutiny and debate on these issues.

The coroner's comments chronicle a devastating parade of administrative ineptness. He reveals sham tender processes; inadequate and fundamentally defective Cabinet submissions; governmental involvement in tenders; most unsatisfactory management and organisation of a key agency; the adoption of a demolition process that was fraught with risk; a process that failed the primary requirement of public safety; unwarranted intrusions from sources outside the project site; the absence of monitoring agencies that was a matter for significant concern; the unwarranted involvement by officials, some from the Chief Minister's own office, who had no technical expertise; an unwarranted intermeddling in the work of on-site safety inspectors; a total abrogation of responsibility to the safety and wellbeing of the Canberra community; and incompetent officials - all of which led the coroner to refer to the systemic failures of this Government's administrative procedures.

These are matters on which members must today judge the performance of the Chief Minister and the need for her to discharge her responsibilities. Because of the breadth of the coroner's criticisms and the extent of his adverse findings, my colleagues will draw out aspects of the systemic failings for which Mrs Carnell must be held accountable, while I will deal more broadly with a range of issues.

One aspect of the management of the hospital demolition that particularly disturbed the coroner was the manner in which the company Project Coordination was appointed as project manager. It was a process that the coroner ultimately referred to as appearing to be a sham, as well he might, given the evidence put before him. It was quite clear to the coroner that Project Coordination was the subject of favoured treatment.

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