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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1779 ..

This is not a motion on whether or not Mr Smyth and his officers breached the privileges of the Assembly. We are not conducting a trial. We are considering whether the issue should be properly investigated.

Mr Speaker, Mr Gower's evidence is stark and explicit. He alleges pressure from the minister and his staff to change the evidence his organisation was to give to the committee inquiry. It warrants an inquiry by a select committee on privileges.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (11.37): Mr Corbell says that he thinks that the nub of the issue is that undue pressure has been put on Mr Gower. The nub of the issue is that Mr Corbell chooses to make one interpretation of what Mr Gower said, even though Mr Gower has since refuted Mr Corbell's interpretation.

Mr Corbell has said that this is about determining what the President of the Gungahlin Community Council said and meant in the urban services committee and whether there has been any undue influence. The government believes from the events that have taken place that this question has been resolved by the person who made those comments, albeit comments that were ambiguous, but which have since been clarified by the author himself because of the confusion those comments have created.

Mr Speaker, what Mr Gower believes he said and what Mr Corbell believes Mr Gower said seem to be two different things. Because of this and because of Labor's refusal to believe Mr Gower himself, through his clarification, we are here today debating this motion.

Mr Speaker, it is purely politics. Mr Corbell does not want to believe Mr Gower. Why? Because Labor's interpretation of events gives him a chance to play politics and have a cheap shot at me, a member of the dreaded government. So here we are, pandering to Mr Corbell's political game.

Unlike Mr Corbell, I have chosen to believe the person who made the comments in the quest to determine what they meant. I can only make a judgment based on what I have been advised, and once again, as I have done before in this place, I will explain what I know. Mr Speaker, I believe that that information shows that this motion is unwarranted. It is like using a sledgehammer to break an egg.

Mr Speaker, as I have said before, this is what occurred on that day when the comments in question were made by Mr Gower in the urban services committee. I was interstate on that day at a ministerial meeting. Staff in my office received calls from the media wanting a response from me in response to what Mr Gower is alleged to have said. My senior adviser contacted Mr Gower to ask what he had said in the committee hearing as we were being asked for media comment. My senior adviser had not been in the committee hearing. Indeed, none of my staff, had been in the committee hearing.

After they explained what the allegations were that the media were asking for our reaction to-essentially those contained in the press releases from Mr Corbell and Ms Tucker-Mr Gower advised that he had been misunderstood and that the statements being made by them were not correct. My adviser then asked whether, if that was the case, he was going to clarify the situation, to which Mr Gower said, "Yes." I understand that he called the media that were doing the story late Friday afternoon. My senior

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