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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 980 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

But there is more. The commentary goes on to list the price indexation increases at $4.259m. This is the allowance the Government has made for inflation. It is real new funding - not, as Mr Quinlan seems to believe, a negative number. Mr Quinlan's comments show that, for no apparent reason, he has simply deducted the positive price indexation figure from the new "growth needs" funding figure. He ignored the total value shown on the operating statement, leaving him with an $8m error in the response in January.

In January I understand that an article appeared in the paper explaining Mr Quinlan's mistake at that time. Yet we find exactly the same mistake repeated here. It is not just a little mistake. Note the similarity between the words at the bottom of page 14 of the report and the words on page 5 of Mr Quinlan's media statement. The media statement reads:

This report reads:

They are the same words. In January he said:

The words here in front of us are:

They are exactly the same words. In January he said:

This leaves precious little room for growth in demand, let alone service improvement.

We read in the report:

I admire Mr Quinlan for getting his press releases into a committee report. But for Mr Quinlan, having made a mistake and having had it pointed out to him, to continue to follow it through is a little over the top. To make a mistake is human. I admire the fact that you acknowledge your mistake about superannuation. It is a shame that one of your colleagues, who is not in the Assembly at the moment, was not able to do the same. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated incident. In another part of the media statement in January Mr Quinlan said:

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