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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 569 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

agreement on the individual rights of those people to have that protection. We do not change the rules retrospectively; we start them. To me, that is the biggest problem that we have had in this circumstance.

Governments also have to keep good faith with the people they work with. No matter what the colour or hue of a government, it cannot afford to be in the situation where businesses do not want to deal with it for fear that something they believed was happening and they agreed to in good faith was then going to be changed, reviewed and made public when they rightly believed that it would not. We just have to make sure that we have the information right in the first place.

That is why it is that I look forward, first of all, to working with Mr Stanhope and Mr Osborne to get the best possible outcome we can so that the Assembly can consider and debate these matters fully. Then we can get a set system without retrospectivity that makes very clear what we expect and how we are going to act, and there is a proper open scrutiny process involved.

MR BERRY: Am I required to seek leave, Mr Speaker?

MR SPEAKER: Yes, you are.

MR BERRY: I seek leave.

Leave granted.

MR BERRY: I can quote from Ms Armitage's report in the Canberra Times as an opening to my contribution to this debate. It appeared in Saturday's Canberra Times.

I think most people out there in the community would be entitled to be extremely cynical about the timing of this move because it was clearly designed to take some of the pressure off the Government, pressure which it has earned because of the dreadful debacle which has occurred as a result of the Chief Minister's fingerprints being all over management of the Territory, causing us great financial burdens that future generations will have to pay for. There will be more on the Government's and this Chief Minister's fingerprints on financial management in this Territory later on when we deal with the ACTEW debate because it is clear that there has been an involvement there from day one of this term of government.

Mr Speaker, I want to deal at this point with what is said on page 3 of the report. Mr Moore rightly drew attention to a paragraph - I think this was the one - which says this:

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