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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (10 May) . . Page.. 1412 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

That is what the contract provided should have happened, in the event that BOPL had paid the bill. If the contract had been administered within its terms, then BOPL was to meet the expenses in accordance with a strict formula set out in the contract. Did McManus follow that same formula? Did McManus justify the expenditure of $250,000 of our money? Of the money that McManus apparently spent, $109,000 was money which we paid into the trust account of a solicitor operating out of an office in Surfers Paradise. What control did BOPL have over that trust account? What does BOPL know about that? What does BOPL know about any of the bills that were paid by McManus?

Is this the way to control the expenditure of ACT ratepayers' moneys? Is this the way to manage contracts entered into by ACT government organisations-not to comply with the terms of the contracts? The contract was explicit-"upon the signing of this agreement to immediately effect the following insurance in joint names of the parties". That is pretty clear. ITC was to effect a policy of insurance in the joint names of the parties. How much clearer can you get than that? It is crystal clear. ITC was to effect a policy of insurance in the joint names of the parties to the agreement, and they did not do it.

Our exposure is not protected. The moneys we advanced to the solicitor operating out of his office in Surfers Paradise are not protected. We are not protected against loss of profit and, more seriously, we are not protected against the potential losses that could have occurred as a result of this thing going bad. We could have potentially faced losses of millions of dollars if it had gone appallingly bad.

I had meant to refer to the commercial-in-confidence guidelines and to the extent to which the Chief Minister and her ministers today have simply trashed that document. To get some historical perspective, it is worth members reading the guidelines and the Chief Minister's covering press release. It will give you a good laugh today. It will make you despair but in some perverse way it will also make you laugh. What did the Chief Minister say those short 18 months or so ago when she was releasing the guidelines? These are the words of the Chief Minister:

She also said:

(Extension of time granted.) I make a couple of other comments to illustrate the extent to which the government has absolutely no commitment to its commercial-in-confidence guidelines. It uses commercial-in-confidence to hide behind. It has guidelines. They are quite reasonable guidelines. They were issued only recently by the Chief Minister. In the words of the Chief Minister:

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