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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2005 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

will think is all right. They are the facts. Hopefully a couple of more schools will take up the offer which we have had on the table since 1998 to bring some more ovals back at our primary schools. I reckon there might be a couple more community ovals we look at. Maybe some, such as the two I mentioned, could go back to Urban Services as open urban space.

None of that involves selling anything to developers for residential or commercial use. If that is an error, okay. These things happen. The facts speak for themselves. How many factual errors have you made, Mr Corbell, in the document you tabled today?

MR CORBELL: I ask a supplementary question. Minister, you have now confirmed that the statement that these grounds occupy prominent locations in suburban areas and many may be better used for residential or commercial development was a mistake. Minister, will you now explain to the Assembly why the past three ownership agreements for your department, signed by your chief executive, included the same mistake?

MR STEFANIAK: I have just said that, Mr Corbell.

Mr Corbell: Why? Why for three years did they have the same mistake?

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Corbell, I do not know. As I said, a number of people in my department and I-and we have had two Treasurers-signed it. There are probably a dozen, 15 or 20 people who, if they had dotted every i and crossed every t, could have picked that up, but they did not. Mr Corbell, did you? Did you pick up your little error where you talk about-

Mr Corbell: Did your department write that?

MR STEFANIAK: No, I am talking about your mistake now, Mr Corbell, a very recent one where you indicated that legal and welfare rights are funded by the Commonwealth and not by the local government. Do not be such a hypocrite, Mr Corbell.

Mr Corbell: I take a point of order. Mr Speaker, I know the minister is sensitive on this issue, but the relevant standing order still applies. I did not ask him about the Estimates Committee report. In fact, he cannot answer a question about the Estimates Committee, because he has no connection with it. The question relates to why his department made the same mistake for three years.

MR SPEAKER: It is not a point of order, but in any case I could not hear what the minister was saying because there were far too many interjections.

MR STEFANIAK: My final point is: how good has your scrutiny been, Mr Corbell, if it has taken you three years to find that as well?

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