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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2317 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: She was threatened to be sacked, but she resigned in the face of that threat. It was quite clear that if she had come into the Assembly on the day appointed for this decision that she would have been sacked.

Mr Stanhope: Did she accept responsibility?

MR HUMPHRIES: You ask her that question. I am not Mrs Carnell.

Mr Speaker, the concept has been enlarged recently. The Auditor's comments about the view of the government in respect to the Bruce Stadium affair on this matter obviously reflect a view about the level of ministerial responsibility which has since been superseded by events in this place. The conditions under which ministers ought to resign are different today than they were, I would argue, a year ago when we relied on a different set of precedents for an answer to the question you asked. Having said there is a different set of precedents, having said that the concept has been enlarged, and the number of occasions where a minister will be required to accept responsibility to that degree and then have to resign has been enlarged, I accept that there is a need to revise the way in which we do things, Mr Speaker.

I think the standard is regrettable. I think it is going to be a harder standard to live with. I want to make one thing quite clear: it is not just this government that will have to live by that standard, it is future governments as well. What in the past would have been a matter that would not have required the resignation of a minister, now obviously, in the future, will.

Talking about the Auditor-General, it is fine to hear that the opposition supports these principles, but they never articulated them in any clear way before the Bruce Stadium affair arose. On earlier occasions Labor's views about ministerial responsibility were far more conservative than they appear to be today.

MR STANHOPE: I have a supplementary question. I thank the Chief Minister for the comments he just made. I think they fly in the face of the finding of the Auditor-General.

MR SPEAKER: Order! No preamble.

MR STANHOPE: Accepting that in his report tabled yesterday, in paragraph 3.30, the Auditor-General said:

Those Ministers quoted above-

the ministers quoted above, as I indicated before, were the current Chief Minister, the previous Chief Minister and the current Minister for Education-

have made it clear that they are unwilling to be held accountable to the public for the detailed operation of public sector administrative units. Indeed, some of the views expressed above suggest an unwillingness to be held accountable for anything other than improper misconduct and misleading the Assembly.

That is the conclusion of the Auditor-General in yesterday's report. Accepting that, and acknowledging that the Chief Minister said in his media release yesterday that the government overwhelmingly supports the Auditor-General's report, can the Chief

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