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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (13 June) . . Page.. 1648 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

risen, I think, for 7 months in a row-400 jobs, I think it was in the last month, from my memory of it. That is an important recommendation, which punches a hole in what is, according to Mrs Burke, a chocolate-coated budget.

I go also to the pages 14 through to 16 in relation to the CTEC and the transfer out to the Canberra Airport. What a murky arrangement that was! And it was made murkier by the government's refusal to deliver all of the papers in relation to that deal when they were asked for. It was started in this place when Ms Tucker moved a motion requiring the papers and Mr Smyth denied them to the Assembly-and, in fact, denied certain information in them when it was handed to the Clerk for viewing by Assembly members. Those papers had to be pulled like unwanted teeth from the government as the Estimates Committee went through its process. I was not a member of the committee but I was involved in some of the discussion about this particular issue.

On any estimate of the transfer to the airport, I think you would have to be highly cynical of the arrangements that were used to bring about that move. I think every member of the Assembly is entitled to be sceptical about those arrangements. No wonder Mr Humphries is so agitated about criticism of his budget along these lines-because it, again, punches a hole through that chocolate coating that we are expected to believe is there. With the GMC400 we were told, when we passed an additional appropriation, that this is what we were going to spend on this great race which was going to bring so much for the territory. We were sceptical of the government's position in relation to the matter because we could see, with the wisdom of experience, that this government was not up to doing business in the ACT with any measure of success. Our worst fears came to fruition-another $11/2 million per year for the GMC400 race.

What is even more interesting arising from that was the question that arose during the course of evidence given to the committee about how much is paid to AVESCO. We knew it was somewhere between zero and $1.4 million. We asked how much money was paid to the owners of the V8 car race, AVESCO, and we were told that officials would go away and ask AVESCO whether they could give us this information. Well, it appears that AVESCO does not want us to know. So we will never know what it is we pay the owners of the V8 car race for having the race here each year. But we know it is somewhere between zero and $1.4 million, and I say it will be a lot closer to $1.4 million than it is to zero.

So here we have a secret arrangement between CTEC and the organisation that owns the V8 car race, with the approval of government, which gives away, let us say, a million dollars each year over the life of the race. So five million bucks will go into the hands of a private operator. We will never be able to scrutinise it or what value we get for the transfer of those funds. No wonder Mr Humphries is agitated about those issues being drawn out into the open, because, as I have said before, this melts the chocolate coating.

There is also the free school bus arrangement. We have heard much about the government's commitment to consultation, and the draft budget process immediately comes to mind. And was the free school bus initiative mentioned in the draft budget process? Not one letter, not one word was mentioned in the draft budget context. This is purely an election year sweetener, and it has been identified as such by the Estimates Committee in its editorial about the issue.

Of course the recommendation that this expenditure be delayed until after the budget is appropriate. That would test the will of the government, and I look forward to its response in relation to that matter. I see in the report mention of the Belconnen Pool, and we know that $270,000 has been spent thus far. It seems that the $270,000 has been spent to stop people from swimming in it before the next election. That is the impression that anybody could fairly get in relation to this.

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