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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 160 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

decision to hold the CHOGM conference in the ACT. I think we need to dwell on that a little and we need to dwell on the facts as we know them. The Chief Minister's announcement in relation to the decision not to hold CHOGM in the ACT was delivered on 31 December, the last day of the year. I think that was the day that the Chief Minister left for a short holiday.

We think that there is some evidence, reading between the lines in relation to media articles on the decision in relation to CHOGM, that the Prime Minister advised the Chief Minister of the decision in the week before Christmas. That is what we think. There has been some comment from the Chief Minister's spokesperson in relation to the issue. We know from the Canberra Times of 14 January that the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister held negotiations, as they were called by the Canberra Times, about the decision. The Chief Minister has held negotiations already with the Prime Minister about the decision not to hold CHOGM here. One would assume, Mr Kaine, that the Chief Minister is very well placed to advise this Assembly and the people of Canberra in detail of the reasons why the Prime Minister removed CHOGM from Canberra because of the negotiations she has already had with the Prime Minister about the decision.

The report that we have from the Canberra Times of the Chief Minister's spokesperson is that the Prime Minister was receptive to the Chief Minister's ideas on what should now flow from the decision to take CHOGM from Canberra. So the Chief Minister knows what the reasons are; she already has them, and they have been reported. I am not quite sure when this happened because, as I understand it, at the time the Chief Minister's spokesperson was giving this interview to the Canberra Times both the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister were on holidays. I assume that they broke from their holidays to hold these negotiations that the Chief Minister's spokesperson refers to. He went on to give some detail as to those negotiations. The Canberra Times reported that the Chief Minister's spokesperson was able to tell the Canberra Times that the decision, to quote the Canberra Times of 14 January this year, was made on the basis that Canberra was not equipped to accommodate 55 heads of government and their entourages. Of course, there was a significant cost to the Territory as a result of that.

There is some detail that we would like to know. I am a little surprised that the Chief Minister did not take the opportunity presented by this debate to give the Assembly all the details of the Prime Minister's decision as would have been revealed in those negotiations. Surely the Chief Minister did not enter into negotiations with the Prime Minister about his decision without saying, "John, why did you do this? Surely you remember, John, that on the day before the last ACT election you promised CHOGM to Canberra. You are now taking it away. Why are you doing that?". Are we to believe that in those negotiations the Prime Minister did not tell the Chief Minister or that the Chief Minister did not ask, "Why did you take CHOGM from us?".

In terms of the submission which has been made by the business community and which the Chief Minister, through her amendment, has now provided for this Assembly to endorse - points (a) and (b) were taken from that submission; perhaps she should have included a few other points in there as well - what is the sense of doing that now? When the Chief Minister relays this motion to the Prime Minister, I imagine the Prime Minister will write back saying, "Dear Chief Minister, I told you during our negotiations

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