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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4142 ..

MR BERRY: I said at the time that this was underwriting ACT business welfare, Mr Humphries. It was always business welfare and it has failed from the beginning. It was one of those things where the Government was under a great deal of pressure because of their Liberal colleagues on the hill getting stuck into public servants. They themselves had been stuck into ACT public servants at the same time. I think Mr Kaine probably hit the nail on the head. Over a bottle of red wine, someone said, "We need a good idea", and came up with this one on Monday morning, with all the bells and whistles about how it was going to prevent all the big fellows from overseas and out of town taking business away and we were going to score it all for local businesses. Well, in the end it has been a monumental failure. It was never going to succeed because it was always intended to underwrite business.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, who ended up with the money out of this? Where did $1.5m go? Who got it? Somebody has done pretty well.

Mr Osborne: It will come back in sponsorship at the next election.

MR BERRY: Ah, it will come back in sponsorship at the next election.

Mr Osborne: Donations for the next election.

MR BERRY: That could be right. Friendly little sponsorships. Well, somebody did all right out of this, and there is not much evidence around to say that the ACT taxpayer did too well. It troubles me that the list is growing longer by the day. Today we were talking about inappropriate payments for temporary accommodation to senior executives of the Public Service. That was a small amount compared to this $1.5m. I see now that there is a little bit of nervousness around this chamber about the V8 car race and what we might get out of that, absent any private sector sponsorship. The funny thing about it is that there is - - -

Mr Osborne: Another bill.

MR BERRY: Yes, another bill. We will get another bill, and not only that. I can almost picture the speech.

Mr Humphries: You supported the legislation.

Mr Osborne: Just change the name. Take out Bruce Stadium, put in - - -

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Osborne, do not encourage him.

MR BERRY: We supported it with lots of qualifications, Gary. We are very nervous about this. We are very nervous.

Mr Humphries: So when it succeeds you will say, "Yes, we were behind it", and when it fails you will say, "Yeah, we told you so".

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