Page 831 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 2 May 2007
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and appropriate. It was in accordance with the legitimate expenditure. Yet, we have this innuendo, “Oh, there was a credit card used at Strandbags.” Shock, horror, it must have been inappropriate, it must have involved some malfeasance; that particular officer must have been up to something dodgy.
The purchase was by a senior executive who required that particular purchase to pursue her duties. So I am not prepared to say, “Oh, the expenditure was at Nunie, therefore it was inappropriate.” I do not know the details of that. As I just said, I will get the details of every expenditure and the explanation that has been provided it relation to it.
But yesterday—and I did not have the details of the Strandbags purchase—the innuendo, the spin, the shock and horror, the loathing was, “Oh, it must be inappropriate.” The Strandbags purchase was by Lucy Bitmead, a senior executive within the Chief Minister’s Department, who required assistance in the pursuit of her duties in the carriage of documents. But that was not the basis or the way in which the question was proposed. It was all about sleaze. It was all about innuendo. It was all about, “Oh, this must be crook.” It was all about, “Oh, there must be a tinge of fraud around this.” It was to assist a senior official with the Chief Minister’s Department to do her duty.
So I cannot respond to the particular question. It was not just a weighted question. The question contains the explicit claim that the expenditure was inappropriate—that is the assumption that is included within the loaded question. Certainly, mistakes happen and certainly, as I said yesterday, they are to be regretted. I think it is a matter of enormous regret, as I said yesterday repeatedly, that senior executives within the ACT service—or, indeed, any service, any institution or any organisation, whether it be public or private—from time to time, whether it be through sheer negligence or slackness, allow an official credit card to be used inappropriately.
We can say it is accidental or it is negligent or it is inappropriate or it is simply slack. Accepting all of those explanations and excuses, it is not appropriate and it is to be regretted. But to actually confect the case that it is somehow a grievous sin really is to seek to make some sort of silk purse out of some outrageous sow’s ear. It is to seek to confect a case in relation to an aspect of government that really is not justified. In the context of the sums we are talking about, it is inappropriate. I do not walk away from it—it is to be regretted and I am exceedingly annoyed that senior officials, people in whom we place this trust, make mistakes in relation to appropriate expenditure on credit cards.
MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Chief Minister, how long did it take this very senior employee to repay the money for the inappropriate expenditure—it recorded on the public record that is was inappropriate expenditure—for her frock at this Canberra boutique?
MR STANHOPE: I will have to take that question on notice. I am sorry that I do not have that information or detail with me. I am happy to take that on notice. Indeed, as I indicated in relation to the question, I will receive advice—and I regret that I do not have it today—in relation to every one of these expenditures. I can see how excited you are by them and I will provide the details—the sorts of details that you are
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