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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4091 ..
MS CARNELL: Are we getting stuck into public servants again? I can guarantee that neither Mr Humphries nor I, as the shareholders of territory owned corporations, will give a direction to the boards suggesting that they take out corporate sponsorship. Equally, I will not give a direction saying they should not. It is a commercial decision for them.
MR QUINLAN: Mr Speaker, I was wondering if, to drum up sponsorship, we will see the two Woodies playing a game of tennis on the home straight, funded by ACT Forests. Perhaps a display of burnouts conducted by the ACT Police to drum up sponsorship from Urban Services. Or perhaps a celebrity race around the track, using cars seized under Mr Rugendyke's burnout laws.
MR SPEAKER: The perhaps could also be interpreted as hypothetical, of course.
MR HARGREAVES: My question, through you, Mr Speaker, is to the Chief Minister. Recently the Government responded to a request of Mr Stanhope, under the freedom of information laws, for documents relating to seating arrangements at the redeveloped Bruce Stadium. The Government provided three documents, one of which was a press clipping. Another was version 8 - the current version - of the functional design brief for the stadium. Given that the Opposition already knew of at least seven other related documents, a member of Mr Stanhope's staff queried the response and the department provided another document, version 7 of the functional design brief dated 3 September 1997. My question relates to the differences between the two documents. The only difference I can discover in relation to the seating arrangements is that version 7 contained one additional sentence, and I quote:
The seating installation will be television camera-friendly and will involve the use of multi-coloured (confetti) style seats randomly distributed to mimic the appearance of occupied seating even when the stadium is empty.
Why was that sentence removed?
MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I have to say FOI requests do not come through my office because they are not allowed to. Documents given out under FOI are not given to the respective Ministers, simply because they are not allowed to be given to the Ministers.
MR HARGREAVES: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. In that case, the Chief Minister might find out and let us know. Does removal of the sentence signal that the Government is not concerned that the take-up of ticket sales for Olympic soccer is at about the same rate as for synchronised swimming, with only Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling lagging behind?
MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, sales of Olympic soccer tickets for the ACT in percentage terms were actually better than in most other States.
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