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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 516 ..

MR RUGENDYKE (continuing):

Sydney journalists Greg Growden of the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Jenkins of the Australian and Terry Smith of the Daily Telegraph were especially vitriolic in their criticism. One said:

Chief Minister, why do we have such appalling press facilities at Bruce Stadium? How can you stand up in this place and say how great they are when a public relations nightmare is bubbling away and is going to explode into a disaster during the Olympic soccer in six months' time?

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I may need to have the question repeated! I thank Mr Rugendyke for the question and for the input. Have those journalists ever spoken to you about that, Bill?

Mr Stefaniak: No, not those particular ones.

MS CARNELL: Not those particular ones, so there were some others. I have to say that they have never spoken to me about that. We will certainly follow up on those concerns. I am very pleased to hear that they say that it is a first-class stadium and that you see the game best out in the stadium with the people who are actually paying to watch the game. I think that is exactly the way it should be, that the people who are actually paying for seats out there are the ones who should have the best view. Mr Speaker, the stadium does have appropriate cabling and all the other things that go with media broadcasting and so on. If there are things that the media would like to have, they should write to me about them.

MR RUGENDYKE: I have a simple supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I understand that some members of the media were consulted prior to the redevelopment and I would be interested to know what suggestions were made concerning media facilities and exactly what was implemented but, more importantly, I am curious to know how you propose to fix up this mess now that the budget for Bruce Stadium has spiralled out of control.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I have no idea what consultation was had with the media prior to the redevelopment because I was not part of it, nor should I have been.

MR QUINLAN: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. The ABN AMRO scoping report incorporated very positive profitability figures for ACTEW in its current state. These figures were originally sourced in ACTEW's own predictions. These figures did predict diminishing profits from electricity retail. We all understand that something needs to be done about retail without necessarily the price tag that you have to sell some assets to get that solution. Recently, the ACTEW CEO stated that the business will wither on the vine or die on the vine if we do not immediately embrace the ACTEW/AGL deal. I think the Treasurer has echoed those sentiments. Can the Treasurer explain how the ACT's water business will either grow or shrink under

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