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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 4 May 2004) . . Page.. 1711 ..

…support the position of the government in as much as Football Park should be preserved as a sporting and recreation facility and believe, as is evidenced by the record herewith attached, that it can support the government and the community by substantially covering the cost of maintenance and enhancement of the facility in the future.”

The minister said: “We are buying it back because the guy who has some sort of contractual arrangement with ACTAFL wants to redevelop it; we do not want that to happen.” What he did not tell the committee, and therefore this place, was that he had another offer which was to substantially keep the place as a sporting and recreation facility—and not just keep it, but maintain it and enhance it. I understand other groups are supportive of this proposal. I think the minister should take recommendation 7 very seriously and make those documents available to the Assembly very quickly.

Recommendation 8 is that the minister apologise to the assembly for withholding relevant information from the Select Committee on Estimates in relation to the Phillip Oval matter. We cannot, as an Assembly, make an informed judgment on this matter when the minister picks and chooses which bits of information he gives. He cannot and should not do that. He was asked in fairness and openness and he chose to—I guess you would call it sins of omission—to answer the way he would.

Mr Corbell: Read the question; read what I was asked.

MR SMYTH: The minister says, “Read the question.” You can pick and choose how you do this and you can always hope to get away with it as the minister often does. But in this case he has been well and truly caught out. He has an offer from an organisation that wants to keep the oval as a sporting facility and he chooses not to make that information available to the committee.

Recommendation 9 looks at allocating funds for the purchase of a humidicrib. I hope the government will take that favourably. Recommendation 11 is that the Assembly pass the appropriation bill. Recommendation 10 calls into question how much of the money is required. Questions were asked and taken on notice—I do not believe I have got answers yet—as to how much of this money is to be expended in this financial year. So recommendation 10 calls on the government to report back to the Assembly on the first sitting day in August this year as to how much of the $103 million contained in the bill was spent by 30 June.

I hark back to the use of the $10 million from the TA for the urgent fire upgrade two years ago of which only 30 per cent has been spent. If the Treasurer’s definition of “urgent” is that you get rid of 30 per cent in two years based on this extra $100,000 million that the government is asking for, then $70 million may well be floating around two years from this date. This is important. I hope the government takes this seriously and comes back to the Assembly on the first sitting day in August to tell us how much of this third appropriation has been expended and how much of it could have been included in the budget about which we will hear later today. I commend the report to the Assembly.

MS MacDONALD (11.17): I thank the Treasurer for allowing me to speak also. I will try not to speak for too long—I cannot necessarily guarantee that this will be the case—

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