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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3575 ..

It was an inexcusable event that put very many more people in danger. It should not be forgotten through the course of this debate that it was only by the grace of God that so few, in fact, suffered.

I very much doubt if anybody here will stand to defend the administration. But if it is administration by so many, where do you look? You look to the leader of that administration. Yes, I will accept Billy Snedden or whatever other statements or precedents you wish to bring forward if it is the action of an administrator or even a small group of administrators, but this is systemic failure and this is failure that goes right to the Chief Minister's office.

We, the people who populate this place, know how that office operates and has operated. We know that there were instructions passed down the line that go to the core of this problem and that emanate from people very, very close to that office. So whom do we count? Whom do we hold responsible? Since the time that I have been in this place, there has hardly been a moment when the administration in this Territory has not been open to serious question. There is a litany of events that I will not list today, but in each case the problem has centred on the Chief Minister and her involvement.

It is logical, I guess, that they did centre on the Chief Minister, because until the very recent cynical, bum-covering manoeuvres that have gone on, all power has rested in the office of the Chief Minister. However, this Chief Minister takes no responsibility for this total failure. She has uttered the hollow words that she is responsible for everything, but they are very hollow words indeed, particularly when you observe the action, the shameful buck-passing. And I have no doubt that Mr Kaine will refer to some of that shameful buck-passing before the day passes.

I have a mental picture of a lifeboat surrounded by floating, struggling bodies that have been cast out, only a couple left in it; yet it has not risen in the water; it is still weighed down. We have all witnessed the unedifying sight of public servants who have given this Chief Minister their loyalty or at least their slavish obedience, public servants who have stoutly defended the Chief Minister's line in estimates committees and who sometimes even took flak in the media when things got hot, jettisoned. We have seen their careers cut short, possibly irrecoverably.

Here I find difficulty following Mr Osborne's appalling logic and I think that at least five minutes of his speech was an argument for the Chief Minister to resign, that somehow this problem occurred because public servants said yes, when they should have said no. To whom did they say yes? Anyway, this particular Chief Minister will not take responsibility, despite her hollow claims. This Chief Minister has lived by propaganda, has jumped into every limelight available and has set up many more. She is, in fact, to be congratulated on the personal sell job that she has done. And many have been taken in by the stunts and the gush and it must have been a wonderful trip.

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