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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1814 ..

The lack of an explanation has caused, and will continue to cause, much unnecessary grief. It is a major obstacle in the path of the recovery process.

The sentiments expressed in this message reflect the reality for many Canberrans. I recognise that the Chief Minister’s forgotten phone call has been the proverbial last straw for some people. While I do understand that and do not in any way judge those who feel that this motion should succeed because of failures in the management of the fire disaster, I have to look at this motion for what it is, and it is not about how the government handled the fires. It is about misleading the Assembly. It is about whether Jon Stanhope lied to the Assembly. It is a motion based on the understanding that the Assembly must not be misled by any member and that, if it is, that member must be brought to account.

In looking at the question, an obviously important consideration is whether the misleading was intentional or whether it was wilful misleading. As I have said, I do not believe that it was an intentional misleading by the Chief Minister and there has been no evidence given to support this.

I accept Jon Stanhope’s explanation that he forgot the phone call and I do not believe that he would lie about it. No matter how many assertions and allegations and how much speculation comes from the opposition on this matter, I will not hang someone on suspicion. I know that some people have said that this is the same as the no-confidence motion in Kate Carnell over Bruce Stadium and I am somehow being inconsistent, so I will briefly point out why I do not see substantial similarities.

Obviously, the Auditor-General’s 12-volume report is available for those who are interested in the detail. But even prior to the Auditor-General’s report there were three legal opinions saying that the expenditure of $9.7 million without appropriation was illegal. There were already comments made by the Auditor-General through the estimates process and other documents made available to members. There was evidence of a $9.7 million overnight loan, a breach of the financial management guidelines, and attempts were made to amend the guidelines retrospectively in order to legalise these actions. That was evident before the Auditor-General’s reports came out.

On the question of my support post-implosion of a motion of no confidence in Kate Carnell, it was established that she had set up a political decision-making process that led to a diminishing of expertise in government, a loss of accountability and, in the end, a poor decision-making timeframe and a tragedy. In this situation, however, we have a forgotten phone call and a subsequent misleading of the Assembly. This misleading was acknowledged and an apology was made by the Chief Minister after checking legal advice regarding the status of coronial evidence, as Mr Smyth checked when he experienced a similar circumstance.

I noticed that Mr Smyth claimed that it is a significant issue that Mr Stanhope did not come into the chamber in the morning but, as Mr Smyth said, he took the time to check, as did Mr Stanhope. There was a different time period in the checking, but I think the explanation is reasonable.

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