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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2730 ..

If you accept that the mistake was that he thought it was part of Liberal Party policy because it came in a pile of documents that purported be Liberal Party policy—and one is a draft and one is the actual policy; you have to be careful these days—it does not say anywhere on this document that I said that a couple of months ago. The fabrication is even more complex than is first presented; it is total fabrication. He got this, I assume, on or about the 29th, because the Canberra Times did not get it until just before the 29th. I will quote one more time what Simon Corbell says Brendan Smyth said. He said, “That is what he said only a couple of months ago…” Members, please ponder that—“only a couple of months ago”.

It is the feeblest excuse that, if you get something from the Canberra Times, you can think it is from Hansard. I think that is particularly interesting. The other question is: since when did the Canberra Times supply members with Hansard? Who made up Hansard? Mr Corbell did. It has been corrected only tonight. The only reason it has been corrected—and I have asked him to correct it prior to this evening—is that the minister has the threat of a motion of no confidence hanging over his head.

Let us move to the nursing scholarships, which are particularly interesting. Instead of the answer getting clearer in the course of today, the claim that Mr Corbell had announced the nursing scholarships gets more complex because there is not just one answer; we now have three answers from the minister. I put a question on notice about where the scholarships come from. The answer was that an appropriation for strengthening the nurses’ work force in 2001-02 included $600,000 for general nursing scholarships. In 2002-03, in response to identified specific needs from mental health, half of these funds were transferred to mental health.

According to that, they come from a Liberal Party initiative. Then we find, in the original answer from the minister in Hansard, that the money came from an appropriation in January 2002. There was no appropriation in January 2002. The appropriation that occurred in February 2002 did not include money for mental health scholarships. So one story; two stories. (Extension of time granted).

Then tonight a document is given to another member that says that the mental health nursing scholarships commenced in December 2000. So it is not Mr Corbell’s policies or his announcement—these scholarships were running. Again, he did it because, when we announced that we would have mental health scholarships, he had to go one better. That I guess is politics. But when it is brought to his attention, he has to come to the chamber and correct that mistake. He did not do that, and that is the problem.

The third issue is the question of the money, and who spent how much when. But that is not the question. The question is: when Mr Corbell was asked if his facts were correct, instead of checking, he stuck to his story for almost three months before he came in here at the very end of Thursday, 13 May and answered in the dead of night. We know that Mr Corbell knew from the start—from his question time brief of 10 February—that that was not correct. The question time brief says, “In 2001-02 recurrent expenditure has increased to $83.7 per person.” Members, that was the last Liberal budget.

I asked him on several occasions—on almost every sitting day from when this first commenced until I issued the warning on the 14th, when we had the misleading correction of one of the instances; not all six—and that is the problem. When it is

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