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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3611 ..
MR KAINE (continuing):
Remember, it's very important, I am actually not the Minister responsible. I don't run Totalcare, Trevor Kaine is the responsible Minister.
She went on further:
But the Minister responsible is the day to day person who would get that sort of information. It doesn't actually run through my office at all.
Remember that in the context of all of the evidence presented to the coroner and the coroner's findings. He totally rejected that. Later, in answer to another question from Detective Sergeant Ranse, the Chief Minister said:
So these sorts of day to day things don't actually flow through my office at all simply because I'm not the responsible Minister.
That is not what the coroner said. So there we have it: nearly three months after the fatal implosion, after she had had ample opportunity to consider the consequences of the tragedy that has occurred, the Chief Minister tells the detective sergeant of police investigating the matter on behalf of the coroner that it is that nice Mr Kaine who is responsible.
I will not test the patience of members by trawling through the hundreds of pages of evidence given to the coronial inquest by the Chief Minister and a number of other people close to her, although it would be most enlightening for some to read it or hear it if they were here. In particular, the people who were close to the Chief Minister were identified by the coroner specifically. They were Mr John Walker, the former chief executive of the Chief Minister's Department; Mr Ian Wearing, the chief of staff in the Chief Minister's office; and Mr Gary Dawson, variously described as media adviser and senior adviser in Mrs Carnell's office. Mr Walker and Mr Dawson have moved on to better things. In terms of the coroner's inquiry, it is a fair and accurate summary of the evidence to the inquest to state that the Chief Minister herself and these other individuals also maintained that it was me rather than Mrs Carnell who had practical, as opposed to technical, responsibility for the hospital demolition project.
What did the coroner have to say about these assertions by the Chief Minister and those close to her? I quote from the executive summary of the coroner's findings at page 37:
It was beyond question that Mr Kaine played no part in the direction of this project. There simply was no documentary evidence or briefing note or other Government document produced to the inquest that would suggest that Mr Kaine ever played any practical role in the project. The Minister assuming responsibility for the project was the Chief Minister.
I repeat the coroner's unequivocal finding:
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