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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4035 ..

Professor Wasson, Professor Cullen and Professor Kanowski could be bought, or bought off or silenced. Have you ever met Professor Peter Cullen?

Mr Cornwell: Yes I have.

Ms Tucker: They are not silenced. They are objecting to what you came out and—

MR STANHOPE: Professor Wasson, Professor Kanowski, Professor Cullen—this was their report.

Mrs Dunne: No it wasn’t. No, it was the government’s report.

MR STANHOPE: This was their report.

Mr Smyth: Oh!

MR STANHOPE: No it is not. It is their report. They signed up to it. There is no dissenting report. There was no suggestion that they did not agree with it.

It is just amazing effrontery to suggest that Wasson, Kanowski or Cullen have now walked away from their advice. They have not contacted me to say, “Chief Minister, you know how you appointed us to your advisory committee in relation to the regeneration of non-urban areas of the ACT and we gave you advice? We would now like to resile from it.” Nobody has written to me to say that they resile from any of the advice that they provided to the government. Nobody has written to Sandy Hollway and said, “Mr Hollway, you know how we told you what our views were? We now no longer stand by our views or our position in relation to this.”

What they did was provide advice on which the government, through Forests ACT, acted in relation to the establishment of a regime for the replanting of devastated areas of the ACT. We sought the best possible advice available to us. We consulted broadly and widely. We engaged the acknowledged experts in Australia, we accepted their advice and we are acting on it.

Australian Federal Police

MR PRATT: Chief Minister, recently you posed with uniformed AFP officers in ALP television and newspaper advertising. Chief Police Officer Davies has stated that there was “a need for police agencies to remain neutral during the election campaign and I regret that the recently published photographs may detract from our position on this issue”. Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table a letter from the Chief Police Officer to this effect.

Leave granted.

MR PRATT: I present the following paper:

Australian Federal Police—Inclusion of images in election material—copy of letter from the Chief Police Officer for the ACT to Senator Gary Humphries, dated 12 August 2004

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