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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4242 ..

duties, then he has to simply say so. We do not want to pry into—and we do not want to know the details of—such matters if that is what occurred. However, if he had those concerns, then we must know—we would expect to be advised—what steps the Chief Minister took to ensure that the ship of state was being managed during those very difficult hours. The members of this Assembly and the Canberra community deserve to know what the acting emergency services minister and Chief Minister was doing when fires were threatening the nation’s capital, our houses and our residents.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (10.53): Mr Speaker, the government will not be supporting this motion. In moving the motion, Mr Pratt and the Liberal Party persist with a consistent line of questions over recent weeks and indeed over the last year or so about matters the subject of a coronial inquiry still in progress. Mr Pratt is clearly aware that there is a coronial inquiry into the 2003 bushfires, that it is still taking evidence—in fact it met today—and that there will eventually be substantial conclusions and findings in relation to events leading up to and including 18 January 2003. Specifically, the coroner has taken evidence on my decision on 18 January to declare a state of emergency.

Many people—senior officers, fire fighters, community members and representatives of the government, including myself—have appeared before the coroner to give evidence. We presented ourselves to give evidence-in-chief and for cross-examination. The coronial inquiry is an important accountability mechanism. Mr Pratt and the Liberal Party posed the rhetorical question: “What went wrong?” Mr Speaker, that is why we have coroners. That is why we have a coronial process and a Coroners Act. That is why this government has committed to date $7 million to the coronial process to answer those questions.

Ms Tucker: You don’t need to. Mr Pratt’s got all the answers.

MR STANHOPE: That’s right. What, if anything, went wrong? And why did it go wrong? We have committed up to $7 million to answer that question. I have presented myself before the Coroners Court to give evidence. I have presented myself for cross-examination on every question pertinent to issues about the bushfire. The effectiveness of the inquiry, the coronial process, derives from its forensic process, the open nature of the taking of evidence and, most importantly, its impartiality.

We do the public no service if this Assembly attempts, as is occurring again tonight, to usurp the coroner’s role or attempts—and I do not say this lightly, I do not say it rhetorically and I do not say it politically—as the Liberal Party is tonight, to influence the findings of the coroner by debating issues live before the coroner in a politically motivated manner such as is occurring tonight. I will not and cannot believe that it can fairly be said that this motion tonight is not an attempt to influence the coroner.

In this regard, note comments by a former New South Wales judge of appeal, now an assistant commissioner for the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption, who recently expressed concern and called before the Independent Commission Against Corruption the Premier of New South Wales, with the suggestion that a statement he made about evidence before the Independent Commission Against Corruption could be perceived by the public as putting pressure on his inquiry to make particular findings. The Independent Commission Against Corruption referred to the

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