Page 2394 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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McNulty, the deputy head of Territory and Municipal Services, Mr David Butt from the minister for the environment’s department, and Mr Graham Mannall, the head of ACT NOWaste, on the issues of waste. In March 2009, I approved and agreed to briefings for Mr Coe by officers of TAMS, from Mr Gary Byles, Acting Chief Executive, by Mr Tom Elliott, Acting Deputy Chief Executive, by Mr Tim Swift, acting head of ACTION, and by Ms Liz Clarke, deputy head of ACTION, and again a briefing in February by Mr Russell Watkinson, head of Parks, Conservation and Lands, and Ms Diana Hill, deputy head of PCL, and by Ms Lea Durie.
These are the most senior officers within Territory and Municipal Services, without exception: the departmental head, the deputy departmental head, the head of ACTION, the head of Parks, Conservation and Lands. All of them have given detailed briefings, answered every question, responded to every issue that Mr Coe has asked of them. Yet we have today Mr Coe feeling absolutely no self-consciousness—
Mr Coe: How about you answer my letter?
MR STANHOPE: Interrupt now, Mr Coe—caught out in your deceit and your deception.
Mr Coe: Answer my letter of 1 December.
MR STANHOPE: Answer now—interrupt, interject. You have been afforded unparalleled access to the most senior officers within Territory and Municipal Services—and for you to put out a press release today, saying that I have refused you access, is simply untrue, Mr Coe.
Let me tell you: if you actually head off in your political career, believing that you can lie, that you can dissemble, that you can put out press releases that do not reflect the truth, you will have, which I expect anyway, a remarkably short political career. Just take some advice from me: do not put out press releases that are blatantly false—because you will be found out. You will be found out and you will justly—
Mr Coe: Or write letters to builders that are wrong, Jon?
MR STANHOPE: I will write letters. I will write again—I intend to write again—to correct the slur, the repeat. Mr Coe, in the estimates committee—it is in the Hansard—alleged that five reputable Canberra businesses were engaged, or at least one of them was engaged, in price gouging. It is on the record; it is there for you to see.
Mr Coe: No, it is not. No, it is not, Jon.
MR STANHOPE: It is in plain English.
Mr Coe: You are wrong.
MR STANHOPE: Well, I will write to them again too. I will write to them again too and I will give you their responses again, a second time.
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