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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3293 ..
MR HUMPHRIES: I intend to take the time that the government needs to properly canvass the issues-
MR SPEAKER: Order! I warn you, Mr Stanhope.
MR HUMPHRIES: It is important that the decision we make be the right decision, properly canvassed and carefully considered. The government will make its decision in that light, and not merely because Mr Hargreaves offers gratuitous advice about how to proceed. I might also tell the Assembly that there is no such thing as low security remandees. All remandees have to be treated as, effectively, maximum security prisoners because they are all innocent people, technically.
Mr Hargreaves: They are not, and you know they are not.
MR HUMPHRIES: Sorry, remandees, unless they have been convicted of an earlier crime and are awaiting trial for a second offence, are all technically innocent people. Take my word for it, Mr Hargreaves.
Mr Hargreaves: No, if they are remanded for sentencing. You display your ignorance too well.
MR HUMPHRIES: Oh well, another bit of gratuitous advice from the fabulously smart Mr Hargreaves. The fact is that the options put forward by Mr Hargreaves are not feasible. They would come at great expense to the ACT taxpayer, and in my view the better answer is to proceed with the remand centre replacement, not with a stopgap measure.
MR HARGREAVES: I wish to ask a supplementary question of the minister. Is the minister aware that people who are convicted and remanded for sentence are not innocent people, will you accept that your stewardship of five years has been an appalling record of procrastination, and will you step down from that portfolio and allocate it to another minister?
MR HUMPHRIES: No.
MR BERRY: My question is to the minister for sport, Mr Stefaniak. In statements earlier this year the government gave various commitments not to develop ovals, such as:
No ovals have been sold for redevelopment and Canberra citizens can rest assured that the Carnell Government will not do so.
That appeared in the Canberra Times of 20 June. On 19 September a spokesperson for Mr Humphries confirmed that this commitment related only to school ovals. I am reminded of the actions of community members at the recent meeting on planning in the square outside where I heard shrieks of "liar", "bovine excrement", to coin a phrase, and so on. The ownership agreement of the minister's department for Budget 2000 contained the following statement:
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