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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1809 ..

I most certainly have certain issues around the fact that I was not advised at any stage by any of my officials…that is a significant issue, there’s no doubt about that.

I think that the Chief Minister needs to look back at the statement that he made in relation to the admission that he misled us and apologise to those officials for those statements that he was making in relation to asking a question as to why he was not advised, because the record clearly shows that Mike Castle tried to contact him and Mr Keady did contact him. The fact that he has no recollection of that should not reflect poorly on those officials.

I think that every member of this place agrees that we have been misled. That is something the Chief Minister has admitted. During the debate there has been a lot of discussion about the ministerial code of conduct and about statements being factually based to the best of somebody’s knowledge. We had the situation arise that the Chief Minister misled us because he did not check the record and relied on his memory.

I think that raises some interesting questions about the Chief Minister’s record-keeping standards and why he did not choose to check the record for 16 months after the bushfires. The Chief Minister has said that maybe he misguidedly relied too heavily on his memory. I hope that is giving him reason to think about the future and what he will rely on his memory for in the future.

I think that it shows flaws in the way that the Chief Minister keeps his records and conducts his business, that he could so confidently stand up here over 16 months and not only say that he was not told but also question why he was not told. He should not have kept making strong statements without checking his records without knowing whether his record keeping was adequate to support his statements.

The fact that the Assembly and the community were misled is inexcusable. Now that we have reached that conclusion, we must decide what we are to do about that. The members of the government probably will be putting forward the argument—we have not heard from them yet—that Mr Stanhope misled us and he has apologised for that, so there is no reason to take this matter forward any further.

Members of the opposition have put forward the case that he has misled us, not only in regard to the matters that he has admitted to but also in many other ways, and for that reason they no longer have confidence in him. As I said, I have considered the matter by looking over Hansard, by talking to the Chief Minister and by listening to all the evidence put forward today and I will say on the question of whether the Chief Minister holds my confidence as Chief Minister of this Assembly that he holds it no less than he did before he admitted that he misled the Assembly. So, on that decision, I cannot vote for a motion of no confidence.

However, as Chief Minister, Mr Stanhope has responsibility for decisions that he has made. He has ministerial responsibility for decisions of his department. We cannot go back in time and stop the fires, but we must learn from our mistakes. The Chief Minister must put in place programs that ensure that the advice he receives is not forgotten and that his records are regularly checked.

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