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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3574 ..
MR QUINLAN (continuing):
been Kirsten or Martin". It was scarier to discover that the lethal piece of steel was only one of many, many that flew beyond the crowd on that lakeshore.
I want to read the bulk of a paragraph from the first page of the coroner's report. I am sure even the slow readers are up to this one.
The fragments of debris were propelled distances of up to one kilometre from the site of the demolition, in the direction in which Katie Bender was located, and further around and beyond the area of the Canberra Yacht Club. Items of debris were located in the area at the southern end of the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, the lake foreshore, the National Library of Australia, the Treasury car park, the Hyatt Hotel, the Lennox Gardens, and the area towards and beyond the Canberra Yacht Club. An item of steel weighing 16 kilograms was later retrieved from Lake Burley Griffin on the southwestern foreshore adjacent to the Yacht Club. It is trite to say that many hundreds of Canberra citizens, drawn to the spectacle, were at grave risk.
I think the coroner observed that 30,000 to 40,000 people were in the area where Katie died. And from time to time we see the TV footage where an obviously huge chunk of concrete or steel splashes into the lake between two loaded boats very near to each other. How close were we to a tragedy of very great proportions. The defining statement, I think, belongs to Dr A. Krstic. Jon Stanhope mentioned it early. He said:
I'd like to say that it is purely by the grace of God that that shoreline didn't look like a battlefield, actually.
Had it resembled a battlefield, I am not sure that we would be here having this debate today; whether one life is somehow less valuable than 10. And I do not think because of the very danger, because of the consequences of this, the comparisons that Mr Stefaniak has made today are appropriate at all. What we are talking about here is a situation that was created and that could have caused a massive tragedy far beyond the actual results. Maybe if the shot firer had used less explosive, then a lot of that debris might not have cleared the crowd. It is purely by the grace of God; that has to be remembered.
What placed all of the people in mortal danger was lousy administration, lousy general administration; not a staffer but an administration; an administration clearly involved from the Chief Minister's office down. The coroner is unequivocal in this regard. Others before and after me today will refer to the coroner's statements.
But I will just remind people of the words - the sham processes for letting tenders without regard for experience or competence, the total abrogation of responsibility. We have heard earlier claims through Mr Stefaniak that occasionally tragedies happen. Let us go to another quote from the coroner:
It is inevitable and regrettable that accidents do sometimes occur despite the best precautions, but what happened when Katie Bender was killed was inexcusable. It is inevitable and regretful that accidents
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