Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 2635 ..

MR STANHOPE: My question is to the Chief Minister. In September 1997 the Chief Minister told the Assembly the cost to the ACT of hosting Olympic soccer in Canberra was in the order of $10 million. That figure was confirmed by her spokesman in a report in the Canberra Times on 30 September last year. On 1 October the Canberra Times reported the figure was closer to $13 million, given the added cost of security services. This morning the Chief Minister told ABC radio the cost was around $13 million, plus a revenue guarantee of $5.2 million offset by ticket sales. Can the Chief Minister tell the Assembly and the Canberra community if that figure includes the cost of returfing Bruce Stadium, and whether it includes the cost of returfing the stadium twice. Despite the Chief Minister's attempt this morning to shift the blame to SOCOG and the Olympic Unit in her department, will she confirm that it is the government's responsibility, under its contract with SOCOG, to ensure the pitch at Bruce is playable?

MS CARNELL: The costs of holding the Olympics are, as reported to various estimates committees of this Assembly in many situations, around about $13 million. The exact figure is $13.77 million, which includes the fee of $4.71 million payable to SOCOG over three years for support services provided by SOCOG to the territory, as specified by the memorandum of understanding.

Also included in the $13.77 million is $5.38 million for meeting the ACT's commitment to provide a range of logistic services to support the tournament, and $3.68 million in security costs. In addition, the ACT has committed to underwrite ticket sales with a revenue guarantee to SOCOG of $5.286 million.

Mr Speaker, those are the figures that have been given to this Assembly and to members on a number of occasions. They remain the same. My understanding is that the cost of replacing the pitch was able to be met within those figures.

MR CORBELL: My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, the list of papers that I have in front of me includes 10 documents held by your department relating to plans for the redevelopment of Canberra's ovals. These 10 documents are all dated before 22 June when the Estimates Committee requested of you a list of all papers held by your department in relation to the ovals redevelopment scheme. Treasurer, why were not these documents provided to the Estimates Committee when they were called for?

MR HUMPHRIES: Since you put it that way, Mr Corbell, I am very happy to give you some information about the documents concerned. As I understand it, it is true that the documents Mr Corbell refers to were dated before 22 June. However, as I understand it, they were not documents which were at the time of their creation written documents, or rather documents on paper, because they were emails between various parts of the ACT government.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .