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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4246 ..

Let’s get some facts then; let’s roll forward to Saturday. Did the Chief Minister receive any critical panic calls on Saturday morning? No. There actually was some exchange on the phone, but so mundane, in fact, that he forgot that call. So there were no panic calls early on Saturday. What happened, Mr Pratt? We had a crisis on Friday that disappeared on Saturday morning and came back. You have a vivid imagination, I have to tell you.

Let’s go back to Friday night. Did any author of a so-called critical phone call chase any of the Chief Minister’s staff? They have all got little phone books with all the numbers in. No. Did anybody try to call me? Mr Wood? Mr Corbell? Any member of the government? No. How do they know that? Did everybody know that? My phone was on, I think—I cannot guarantee it. No messages, though, nothing on my message bank. My number is in the book. The greeting on my number in the book details my mobile phone number. Did anybody leave any messages there? No.

But somehow this character has decided for us all that there were, somehow, critical phone calls not immediately attended to on Friday night. That is just plain arrant nonsense and it is the whole centre point of what you have said in here tonight; it is the whole centre point of a series of questions. It has got to be, just by sheer logic, nonsense.

Mrs Dunne: It’s got to be, because Ted says.

MR QUINLAN: I did not hear that muttering. But it is the case. You can gather from what you are getting over there that it is: “I’m not hearing this; I don’t want to hear it; it’s logic but I don’t want to hear it.”

Let me just say this much: as we build up to the Saturday, there was a tremendous amount of reportage, of media cover—press coverage and media coverage. You over there, with your 20/20 hindsight—so much better than ours—did you have a scintilla of foresight? Did you ring anyone? Did you say, “I observe the Chief Minister’s not panicking yet; better do something about it”? You read the paper, you watch the television—very graphic footage on the television—what did you do?

I suggest that we were all in about the same position, where we knew that there were bushfires and none of us had an idea that we would be hit by the firestorm that hit us. That is a fact. It’s a fact you don’t want to accept, for the reasons that Mr Stanhope has articulated. You were doing nothing. Why weren’t you? You are a member of the Assembly; you are up with the news. In nearly every question you ask in here, you say, “People are telling me; people are always coming up to me; people are ringing me up.”

Mr Wood: You never asked me for a brief.

MR QUINLAN: Did you ask for a brief? No. You are trying to re-write history and you are defying logic. If there were critical phone calls on Friday that this man missed, what happened? A phone call was made—critical, the whole future of Canberra depended upon it and then it all died away. There was no follow-up. No-one else followed up anywhere. What arrant nonsense.

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