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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1778 ..

did not contain dire warnings or raise alarm in me. If the situation was so grim why, on failing to make those connections with me, was not my chief of staff contacted?

I have no memory of retrieving those messages to my phone on 17 and 18 January, or of making that call to Mr Keady. I accept that I did, but I have no memory of so doing, and no memory of what might have been discussed. That is the simple truth. I was shocked to learn of the fact of the calls. But I understood the significance of the information as soon as I learnt of it. I understood that I had misled the Assembly and the public. I did not mean to but I did, and I understood that I had to act to correct the record as soon as I could. That determination to correct the record promptly was complicated by the fact that I was a witness before an ongoing judicial process to which I also had an obligation—something, it seems to me, we are just a little too quick to forget in the context of this debate. Of course, I am still in that position.

I reviewed my statements to the coroner and the transcript of my evidence and determined that I had not made misleading remarks to the coroner. However, I thought it only correct to inform the coroner of the discovery of the calls as soon as possible. The following morning, Tuesday, 4 May, I had a conference with the government’s legal advisers and prepared and signed a letter to the coroner. The conference could not be held before 11.30 because of the availability of the government’s counsel.

During the morning, despite Mr Smyth’s assertions to the contrary, I informed my caucus colleagues of my mistake and of my intention to correct the record. I, along with the rest of the ministry, attended the budget lock-up for media commitments around lunchtime. On the way to my office from the budget lock-up, at some time after 2.00 pm, I effectively bumped into Ms Tucker—she was in her outer office as I passed—and I informed her of my intention; as much as anything, to unburden myself. As members are aware, I made a statement to the Assembly before questions. The conversation with Ms Tucker lasted only a minute.

Mrs Cross will have to accept that there was no conspiracy to deny her knowledge of what was to come. My obligations were to the court, to my party colleagues, and to the Assembly and the public.

That is the truth of my correcting of the record. There was no attempt to cover up, no attempt to bury the event, as some in this place and in the media have suggested. I acted at the first available moment, after attending to the protocol associated with the Coroners Court. It was budget day, a day on which the Treasurer brought down my government’s third budget, a budget of which I am immensely proud—and I apologise to my colleagues and particularly to the Treasurer, Ted Quinlan, for having to release a story that would inevitably take some of the gloss off an extremely good piece of work.

There is a second aspect to the opposition’s attack on me over these telephone calls and messages, and that goes to the content of the calls. Mr Smyth has suggested that, because of the timing of these calls to me from Mr Castle and Mr Keady on the evening of 17 January and the morning of 18 January, they must have contained alarming information or warnings and that I was derelict or blasé in my response, or lack of response, to them.

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