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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 871 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

We are yet to deal with the issue of the Bruce Stadium. I rather suspect that the perpetrators are going to get off again. I fear that. I feel as though one's involvement here, in not being able to call people to book for these serious offences against the community, becomes a worthless process.

Mr Speaker, I will not be supporting this legislation, and for good reason. There has never been demonstrated an ability to deal with issues of this magnitude. The Government are not up to it. They have demonstrated in the past that they are up to smart alec press releases and some bread and circuses. Day after day we see further examples of Bruce Stadium being drawn into disrepute, to the point where I think our performance at the Olympics is being badly threatened, and it is quite clear - - -

Ms Carnell: By action by AGL?

MR BERRY: No, I am talking about your performance. It is on the nose in the community, and people still remember the flying pieces of steel. This Government cannot be trusted to run anything, Mr Speaker.

Ms Carnell: Fortunately the community does trust us.

MR BERRY: I do not think they do trust you. Mrs Carnell says they do. They have no option at the moment, because you are being propped up. Mr Speaker, there is no doubt that the Territory will be the worse off because of today's performance. The thing I feel most troubled about is that here we are passing all of the mechanisms to give this Government the go-ahead, and we still do not have the numbers. Our last Treasurer does not have the numbers. The Chief Minister does not have the numbers. The Treasurer does not have the numbers. None of the other Ministers seem to care. Mr Moore just wants to get rid of it, it seems, and get it over with. It is too hard.

The first 20 jobs have been listed to go on the first day. Rusted into this are 20 redundancies. What a great effort! Mr Speaker, this has been an appalling episode, and here is hoping that the Territory is not scarred too deeply by it. You can rest assured that I for one and my Labor colleagues will be watching this closely, and at every turn of the wheel we will be making sure that the Territory's interests are protected, as far as we can by ourselves.

MS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (9.10): Mr Speaker, I have been listening to all of this debate today and earlier this week and to all of the fairly inane comments that those opposite have made. Maybe it is a good idea to use this opportunity - and it is the first time I have spoken on this Bill - to try to summarise where we are up to with this whole debate.

All of those opposite who have spoken - probably with the exception of Mr Berry, who just ranted and raved about the whole situation - have made the comment that they accept that we have to do something with retail; that the retail part of the ACTEW operation is risky and therefore does need to be addressed. The Australia Institute said that; Mr Quinlan said that; others in the Opposition have made that comment as well. That seems to be an issue that everyone agrees on.

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