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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3556 ..
MR STANHOPE (continuing):
I have spoken about the notion of arms-length operation. It seems that Mrs Carnell's understanding of the notion is that it is okay to discuss confidential tender details before contracts are let, but it is not okay to be responsible for the administrative failings of an agency being oversighted by her own department. That is despite the coroner's view that WorkCover was no separate legal entity, but an administrative unit of the Government, and despite Mrs Carnell's repeated assurances that she is Chief Minister so she is responsible for everything that happens right across government. A review of WorkCover's administrative set-up was under way before the implosion but, unhappily, not completed. It is only in recent days that the Government has brought forward legislation to establish the agency as a statutory authority, and then only after legislation had been introduced by the Labor Party.
Mr Speaker, some mention needs to be made of the manner in which the demolition of the Canberra Hospital was turned from an industrial project into a public spectacle. The coroner referred in his executive summary to a "matter of fundamental importance". That was that the Acton Peninsula was a construction and demolition site. In the words of the coroner:
It is ... an inescapable conclusion of fundamental importance, no matter what the form of the event may be, that all administrators and organising authorities ensure that the safety of the public is not compromised and is absolutely protected.
It is in his discussion of this aspect of the demolition that the coroner most closely links the Chief Minister and her office to the project. The coroner is absolutely damning in his criticism of the cavalier fashion in which those officials closest to the Chief Minister acted. One of the Chief Minister's senior advisers, Mr Dawson, had a major coordinating role, the coroner found, in the promotion of the demolition as a public spectacle. The Chief Minister gave full approval to the promotion of the implosion as a public event, as an exchange of emails between Mr Dawson of her office and other officials reveals. This was despite the fact that, as Mr Madden said:
It was not appropriate on a global view of the evidence for a celebration to occur, in any form, in respect of the demolition of a building on what was in reality an industrial site. There is no doubt that the events of Sunday the 13th July 1997 failed such a primary requirement of public safety.
In fact, the coroner found that the promotion of the implosion as a public event, as a celebration of change, was so flawed as to represent a total abrogation of responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of the general Canberra community. I repeat: A total abrogation of responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of the general Canberra community.
How could the Chief Minister, her personal staff and the chief executive of her department all have failed to foresee the likelihood of danger to any spectator? Certainly, both the Chief Minister and the head of her department had access to Cabinet submissions which pointed out the need for extreme care in demolishing a building,
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