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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 1064 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

rather than in one. It certainly was a most remarkable media statement. The headline says one thing, but not even in the fine print is there a little worm of a movement for Mr Smyth to say, "I did not say that at all."

Let us look ahead. The festival has had a severe blow. Let us look at restoring its standing, let us look to see whether we can get some of these visitations up and let us see whether the festival can go on and on. For that to happen, it certainly needs the government publicly to acknowledge what I think it has privately conceded, that is, that more work needs to be done, that we need to backtrack and recover ourselves. Mr Mico has been dealt with most severely. I hope that the government is cognisant of that and is trying to work a situation through to give Mr Mico the support he needs and to give all those volunteers the support they need.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Wood, I would ask you to come back to the amendment and the motion.

MR WOOD: Yes, indeed. I am talking about the visitation, and I look forward to strong rulings in relation to Mr Stefaniak in future. There is much more to be done. I hope that things will be recovered; but, in particular, I hope that there will be some support for Mr Mico from the government which owes so much to him.

MR RUGENDYKE (5.19): I have listened intently to this debate to see what I can latch onto to support some of this motion. I would like to put on the record that I believe that if Ms Tucker was fair dinkum about getting this motion up-Ms Tucker can speak for herself-she would have lobbied me, come and told me about it and discussed it with me. But no, she did not. It can only be described as a political stunt. But I have listened carefully just in case there is something that I can latch onto. What have we heard? We have heard about perceptions of conflict of interest. What does that mean? Is that what we have come down to? In deciding an issue as important as a motion of censure of a minister in this place have we come down to myth, rumour and perception? We have heard outrageous slurs on two families in this city. We have had outrageous slurs on the family of the Canberran of the Year, based on a perception that there is a conflict of interest. Goodness me, what are we coming to!

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I did not look at the documents that the Assembly had the Clerk hold onto, but I did take up the briefing from Mr Stainlay, the CEO of CTEC. What did he tell me? He told me that about 22 or 23 buildings were analysed to see whether they would be appropriate for CTEC to reside in, given that the lease for CTEC's current accommodation is to run out in May. They need to go somewhere. I saw the shortlist of three or four. What did the documents show? They showed a little bit of black ink covering up the figures for the dollars per square metre. That did not worry me.

I am not an authority on rental accommodation. I do not know the difference between the three or four amounts per square metre for those three or four buildings. That did not concern me. But what else did the documents show? They showed that Brindabella Park was the best pick out of those three or four. I was satisfied with that. And guess what? It will save the taxpayer, I am told, about $60,000 a year in rent compared to where they are now. Isn't that a terrible thing! Isn't that a shocker! It will save the ACT taxpayer $60,000. And what about this myth that we need to catch buses to Brindabella Park.

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