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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 681 ..

with a public asset, the community has a right to know the details unless there are extenuating circumstances. No such circumstances have been put forward in this case.

A large number of questions remain about the sale process and the continuing involvement and obligations of Totalcare. This motion seeks the provision of relevant information to the Assembly. The Assembly will consider this information and develop appropriate courses of action, because I know that I am not the only member interested in this process. I know that a number of other members on this side of the house and some of the crossbenchers are also interested in this process. I think that the Assembly should decide in this instance what information should be in the public domain.

I think that it is about time that we got some straight answers on this issue. When you are offered a brief, you expect to get at least some answers to that which you are after, not to be told after waiting several weeks for such a briefing that there are no answers. It was interesting to be put in the position of actually being told by a staffer that, if you want to take it further, you have to take it to the house, which is where we find ourselves today.

There is such concern with some members that I have written to the Treasurer as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee seeking such information for the committee. Our role as MLAs is interesting: in some instances we are members, at other points we are ministers, leader of the opposition or shadow ministers, and in some instances we are committee chairs. There is always some crossover. No slight on my part is intended on the committee.

Ms Tucker: I take a point of order. I raise for Mr Smyth’s consideration standing order 241 and request him to consider it before he says too much more.

MR SMYTH: I do not think that I have crossed over the bounds of standing order 241, but if you want to indicate the possibility that I have, I would be happy to take your advice because you have been a committee chair for much longer than I have. I was simply going to say that numerous questions were asked in this house about Bruce Stadium at the same time as an inquiry was going on with the Auditor-General and, at the same time, there was a select committee of this place looking into Bruce Stadium. So it is not incompatible that committees would write seeking information as well as other things are going on at the same time.

I think it is appropriate that you can do that. It has occurred in this place before. In this case, given that the Treasurer seems reluctant to give little, if any, information about this sale, it is open to members to follow whatever avenues they can to get the information that they are interested in. Obviously, we are here to scrutinise what the government does. When you have been approached by constituents to get further information on their behalf, information they have been unable to get, I think it is appropriate that you do so in this place.

With that in mind, I have moved the motion. The motion is quite clear. It asks for a number of things. It might be being a bit ambitious to ask the Treasurer to provide the details by the close of business today. If the motion is successful, given that we wish to finish by 7 o’clock, if possible, perhaps that may need to be amended to, say, the close of business tomorrow. But the questions are reasonable. They are questions about a sale that occurred a year ago, they are questions about the sale of a public asset, and they certainly

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