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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2357 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Estimates Committee. So we asked for some further information. We asked for documents from the department of education. The minister supplied us with the documents which he said were the relevant ones. We saw in that little pile of documents an interesting email message between officers of the department of education and officers of the department of treasury.

Why would the department of education be talking to the department of treasury about surplus sports grounds? The answer is clear. They would only do that if they were seeking to transfer those assets. Why would they be transferring these assets to the Department of Treasury and Infrastructure? The only reason is that they saw them as surplus and no longer needed by the department as ovals.

I think it is clear, regardless of the minister's attempt to protect his position and to hose down the public concern that has arisen as a result of this issue, that the sale of sports grounds is on this government's agenda in the short or long term. There is no doubt in my mind that that is the case. I am sure that the minister will get up here and shout, get angry and defend his record. But the reality is that when they got caught out, those ovals were in the process of being transferred to the department of treasury with sale as a possible agenda. It is as simple as that.

I will be pursuing this matter because I do not believe the government has provided all of the information. I will be lodging FOI requests with the relevant departments to see exactly what else has been going on in relation to this matter.

It was interesting when the issue broke to see the response from the community. It was interesting to hear them ring me and say, "Did you know that they were talking about building something on this oval or that oval?" I have come across at least two occasions on which there were serious discussions between agencies of this government and individual proponents about possible redevelopment of ovals-ovals on the list supplied by the Minister for Education as surplus ovals. Did we get that in the papers supplied by the department of education or the department of treasury? No. So I think there are a few unanswered questions.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I will conclude my comments at this point. I know the minister is going to stand up now, get angry and shout. He is going to say that I got it wrong, that I beat it up, that it is all a big mistake and that he has got such a proud record on sports grounds, et cetera. But the fact is this government was caught out badly, and it is not the end of the matter.

This is another example of the falseness and the shallowness of the social capital tag. If the government were serious about social capital they would not even for a moment be contemplating the sale of valuable areas of open space that contribute so much to the amenity and wellbeing of our community.

MS TUCKER (11.47): I want to address a couple of areas in this line of the budget that I think I need to be looked at. The first is the area of care and protection services. Obviously, as chair of the Education, Community Services and Recreation Committee, I had the opportunity to look at this before the budget was delivered. There have been some changes since then. Of course, we have the arrangement with the teachers, which is obviously good, and I am glad that that was dealt with by government.

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