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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (8 December) . . Page.. 3985 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

Yes, we did go down the path of an Appropriation Bill for the Bruce Stadium money. We put it all on the table because that is what those opposite said they wanted. Now they say it is not what they wanted - or do they, Mr Speaker? It is about time for them to stand up and be counted and to tell the people of Canberra how they would have funded the Bruce Stadium upgrade. They have also said they support that upgrade. They support the upgrade, but they do not support any method of funding it. That shows why they are not in government.

MR STANHOPE: I ask a supplementary question. Will the Chief Minister concede, contrary to her statement on ABC radio and some of the statements that she has made now, that the passage of the Appropriation (Bruce Stadium and CanDeliver Limited) Bill - and wasn't it limited? - was in no way an instruction to the Government to abandon plans for private sector financial involvement in the redevelopment, but was in fact a mechanism to correct the Government's illegal expenditure of public money without the authorisation of the Assembly?

MR SPEAKER: There is an imputation in that question.

MS CARNELL: I am absolutely amazed that those opposite could be so far off the mark. Of course it was a method of public sector funding. That is exactly what it was - a way of moving away from private sector funding to full government funding. That is what the figures showed. That is what it did. I am horrified that Mr Quinlan and Mr Stanhope, who think they could run this Territory, are so far off the mark when it comes to financial information. This Assembly made it clear that they were not happy with our financial arrangements - - -

Mr Stanhope: Because they were illegal.

MR SPEAKER: Ignore the interjections, please, Chief Minister.

MS CARNELL: I am happy to ignore the interjections. To assume for a moment that the Commonwealth Bank would be involved with anything illegal is totally unacceptable, and I am sure the Commonwealth Bank would take great exception to that. The financial arrangements entered into by the ACT Government were backed up by one of the top financial institutions in this country. They believed that it was a goer; we believed it was a goer; but this Assembly did not. - and made it very clear they did not. On that basis we brought a Bill to the Assembly to appropriate the money. That Bill was passed by this place.

To answer the question once and for all, we were happy to go with private sector funding but the Assembly chose not to.

Mr Stanhope: They were not happy to go with you.

MS CARNELL: Mr Stanhope says, "But they were not". We circulated a letter from the Commonwealth Bank making it clear that they were happy to go ahead. Mr Stanhope knows that, because I gave the letter to him.

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