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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2355 ..

comment and the final serious defence of this policy from the minister's spokesperson. I do not know who this person was, but whoever it was deserves a medal. He said that as many of these ovals are located next to schools with low enrolments, if we build houses on them then families will move into the houses and all their children will go to the school, and wouldn't that be fantastic for the school. But someone in the community twigged and said, "But where will they play?" So all of a sudden the government was on the back foot again.

Finally, we had the defence that this was all a big blunder. But that defence did not occur straight away when it was pointed out to the minister. Nor did it occur on the first occasion or the second occasion or the third occasion. It occurred on around the fifth or sixth occasion, about two to three weeks after this was first revealed. So it was an embarrassing backdown-this is the only way that you can describe the government's defence on this issue.

We had the extraordinary situation where the Minister for Education said, "It's a mistake, it's a big mistake and we are sorry. We will put out a correction and it is not on the agenda anymore."

Mr Berry: On the hidden agenda.

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, as my colleague Mr Berry says, perhaps off the public agenda and onto the hidden one.

Mr Stefaniak: What about the reality, Simon. How many redevelopments-

MR CORBELL: I know the minister is touchy on the issue but, really, I think you and I both know that you were caught out and caught out badly.

When the minister said this was a mistake, I thought, "Righto, let us go back and see what the department said in previous years. Let us go back and check that out just to make sure that it really is a mistake." So I went back to the ownership agreement for the year 1999-2000. I went to surplus assets and I thought, "Let's just see what they said about these ovals in 1999-2000." And what did they say, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker? I will read it to you. They said:

that is, the Bureau of Sport-

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, does that sound familiar? It is. It is familiar because it is word for word the so-called mistake in the minister's ownership agreement for this financial year.

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