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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3577 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Attorney-General and a former Chief Minister, consented to a joint venture, a quarry, on condition that it was with Mitchell Mini-Mix and, possibly, CSR Emoleum.

Mr Humphries continued yesterday with his dissembling answers in this place. When asked if that condition had been withdrawn, he said, "Yes, I think in July last year." But there was no correspondence that said to withdraw the condition. He explained to us that Totalcare had changed its mind but that no document had been issued by the shareholders to change that condition. It is probably true that there is a question of law at large in these matters as well.

One of the most important features of this deal was that the McDonald family were of an understanding-and it is in writing in their contract-that the government would not or could not enter into a joint venture without the approval of the McDonalds. Of course, the government entered into a joint venture without the approval of the McDonalds, so there is a question at large there, too. The government entered into a joint venture without the approval of the people who had the licence to operate.

This government has been dishonest with the McDonalds as well. It has also been very careful not to expose to scrutiny the deal it was doing with Pavement Salvage. By not bringing that to this place for public scrutiny, it has made itself even more open to the charge that it was being secretive.

It is interesting. This deal-the approval and the conditions for the joint venture-was being consummated at a time when the government was contemplating the sell-down of Actew. Mr Speaker, how do you think the community and this Assembly would have responded to the sell-down of Actew if the government had come in here with another proposal: to sell down half of its interest in the product and profits from the quarry at Williamsdale?

I reckon the government could have been open at that stage to the charge that there was a bit of a fire sale going on. I think that would have been a fair assumption. But this was kept very quiet because the government knew that the charge of a fire sale would stick. Nobody knew on 24 January 2000 that the government was doing the deal because it was just before the sell-down of Actew. It would have brought a lot unstuck, and that is why the government was very secretive about its approach to the matter.

I now come to some of the issues concerning the management of the place. The business plan for the Williamsdale quarry made it very clear that there were considerable business opportunities and millions of dollars available to the ACT economy if the quarry was properly managed. The money that would flow to the territory would flow by way of dividends, as a return from the profits, from the sale of aggregate and from the reduced costs of aggregate, road sealing and construction work.

If what had been predicted had come to pass, those benefits would be starting to flow now. But we know that there are some management problems at the quarry. A report-that I am not sure the minister will ever table, but I have asked him a question on it-has been conducted on a major machinery failure at the site. There has been some controversy, and I understand there is a wrongful dismissal matter on foot. Production at the quarry is way down. At the last report, one of the contractors at the quarry was going to lose a $600,000 piece of machinery because production was down due to bad

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