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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 163 ..

MR STANHOPE: Yes, ABC.crikey.dot.com. Maybe they just got a bit confused out there at the ABC. In answer to the specific question, I do not know why the ABC would do that, why the ABC would abandon all of its journalistic integrity, why the ABC would launch an attack on Mike Castle and Peter Lucas-Smith using faceless, nameless confidential sources and why those confidential sources did not have the courage to stand up and say who they are, particularly in light of the fact that we have launched two inquiries. Submissions are now being received by the McLeod inquiry. People can make their submissions in an orderly way. They can have some integrity. They can show some courage and guts. They can put their reputation where their mouth is. They can say, "I, Joe Blow, think this and I know this to be true."

Here we have a national broadcaster, broadcasting nationally in a scurrilous attack on the Emergency Services Bureau, using anonymous sources. What do you think of that? I will tell you what I think of that. I think that it is dreadful. I think that it is absolutely dreadful.

There is probably a whole range of things that we need to know about the fire. There is a whole range of things that we have a genuine interest in and right to know about the way in which our Emergency Services Bureau conducted itself. We have a right to feel confident in the abilities of the heads of our Emergency Services Bureau and in the heads of our firefighting services. It is fundamental. We cannot brook any doubt about their confidence, about their professionalism or about their capacity. But I am not going to put up with that sort of nonsense.

I am not going to sit back and say, "The ABC has these confidential sources. Gee, if it is the ABC, they must be right."I am not going to stand here and allow that sort of assault on a vital and fundamental ACT organisation and institution, a part of the ACT public service. I am not going to walk away from them. I am not going to bow my head because we have these forces marshalled against us, unnamed sources, faceless sources, with all this information that suggests that the New South Wales Rural Fire Service did this and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service offered that and the ACT Emergency Services Bureau rejected this, rejected that, did not talk and did not listen.

With one phone call to him, Phillip Koperberg has said, "No, that is not true."Why didn't the ABC ring Phillip Koperberg? Why didn't the ABC say to Phil Koperberg, "We are about to make this allegation"-this really serious allegation, this allegation that cuts to the heart of the integrity and professionalism of Mike Castle and Peter Lucas-Smith-"and we are not going to attribute it to anybody. It is just gossip, it is just scuttlebutt, it is just innuendo, but we are going to put it to air and we are going to put it to air nationally. Is it true?"Phil might have said, "No, it is not true."

It is better not to ruin a good story, I suppose, better not to get in on the act, better not to allow a journalist suffering a bit of attention deficit an opportunity to get in on a big story. I am blowed if I am going to put up with that rubbish. We have two inquiries under way-one of them a full judicial process and the other a process being championed and chaired by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, a person of untrammelled, unsullied independence and reputation, and, at the time that those two inquiries are under way, we have anonymous scuttlebutt being peddled by the ABC. That is what I think of it, Mr Pratt.

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