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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3616 ..
MR BERRY (continuing):
The word that rings in my ears mostly is "inexcusable". It constantly rings in my ears. This is inexcusable. It is inexcusable if the Chief Minister were to get away with this. Mr Humphries said in his speech words to the effect that the coroner did not ask for the removal of the Chief Minister. It is not the coroner's job to interfere in this process; neither is it our job to interfere in his investigation which is conducted under the relevant legislation. It is not the job of the coroner to recommend to us what we should do. That is a decision we have to make.
Mr Kaine aptly put how these things ought to be dealt with. It was us, not all of us, as a collective which installed the Chief Minister; it was not the electorate. It is us who made these determinations and who must wear the responsibility for doing it or not doing it.
Motions of no confidence are a requirement where governments refuse to be held accountable for their actions. The Labor Party on this issue has decided upon this course because we want this issue debated and we want to allow others to debate it as well. Those who vote against the motion of no confidence and speak against it will have to justify themselves to their electorate. Our conscience will be clear.
I would like to quote from the executive summary of the inquest into the death of Katie Bender on 13 July 1997. In the words of the coroner:
Katie Bender died at about 1.30 pm on Sunday, 13th July 1997 when she was struck on the head by a fragment of steel expelled from one or the other of the corner columns (C30 or C74) on the face of the East Wing of the Main Tower Block of Royal Canberra Hospital situated on Acton Peninsula. Katie Bender was with her parents in a crowd estimated to be in excess of 100,000 spectators gathered on the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin to watch the demolition by implosion of the Main Tower Block and Sylvia Curley House. Katie Bender was standing on the grass nature strip just down from Lennox Gardens near the roundabout leading from Flynn Drive to the northbound lanes of Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. The crowd in this area alone was estimated by Constable S.G. Howes of the Australian Federal Police Traffic Operations as between 30 - 40,000 people.
Katie Bender's death was instantaneous.
So went the coroner's report into the death of Katie Bender. But it was not an ordinary death. It occurred at a major public affair encouraged by the Government, in particular the Chief Minister. The public was invited by the Chief Minister in her media release of 11 July, where she says:
The best views will be from the south side of Lake Burley Griffin in Lennox Gardens, the Yacht Club and around Attunga Point, or on the north side of the lake from Black Mountain Peninsula or Acton Park.
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