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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3510 ..

Mrs Dunne: You are straining at gnats!

Mr Stanhope: The motion requires the payment of compensation.

Mrs Dunne: Where? Show us the words. Show us where it says "spend money".

Mr Stanhope: It requires us to spend money.

Mrs Dunne: It does not require you to spend money.

MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Standing order 200 goes to the issue of an enactment, vote or resolution for the appropriation of public money for the territory-that these must not be proposed in the Assembly except by a minister, and so on. Without reference to Hansard, the motion as we have recorded it here is: a motion censuring the Minister for Planning for failure to comply with the direction of the Assembly to negotiate with the owners of the land on the corner of Nettlefold Street and Coulter Drive, Belconnen.

I do not know that that directs the minister to appropriate public money-in fact, my view is that it does not. All of that aside, leave was granted for the motion to be moved. So it really is in the hands of the Assembly.

Mr Stanhope: If I may speak on a point of order, the motion being debated and the motion raised by Mr Smyth is quite explicit-that the ACT government negotiate with the owners of the site on the corner of Nettlefold Street and Coulter Drive, a land swap or suitable compensation. In the words of the Leader of the Opposition, the minister has been asked to comply with a motion which required him to negotiate suitable compensation with the owners of this site.

No moneys have been appropriated to pay suitable compensation to the owners of this site. The motion requires the minister to negotiate suitable compensation. No moneys have been appropriated by this Assembly to pay any compensation, let alone suitable compensation. The minister does not have the capacity to negotiate suitable compensation because this parliament has not appropriated it.

MR SPEAKER: The standing order goes to the appropriation of public money, which is the appropriation of funds from the public. It is not about directions to ministers in relation to certain matters. In any event, the Assembly gave Mr Smyth leave to move the motion. It really is in the hands of the Assembly. My hands are tied.

MR SMYTH: Can I offer a point of clarification for the Chief Minister?

MR SPEAKER: No. I have ruled on the matter.

MR STEFANIAK: As I was about to say before that interruption, the motion called on Mr Corbell to do something and he indicated he had not done it. He was asked whether he was going to do it, and he said, "No."It might be a very different situation if Mr Corbell did what the Assembly asked him to do-seek to negotiate a land swap. If he

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