Page 5369 - Week 14 - Thursday, 19 November 2009
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back up the findings—clearly came to the conclusion that the Attorney-General was incorrect in his defence.
I would be upset if I had had a report like this ever tabled about me. Members will go through it, look at the 25 findings over time and, hopefully, look at the 11 recommendations—so that we can avoid this farce in the future. This is all it is. This is the minister for farce. He can get indignant; he can rage; he can rant. But at the end of the day, a member of the Greens, a member of the Liberal Party and a member of the Labor Party wrote this report. They concluded the 25 findings. They concluded the 11 recommendations. They lay the blame fairly and squarely at the feet of the Attorney-General for not doing his job.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (5.28): I was not going to rise today to talk to this report but, after the contributions that have gone on in this chamber in the last 30 minutes or so, I feel I have to say something. I am totally unimpressed by some of the contributions that have happened here this afternoon. The inquiry into the delay in the commencement of operations at the AMC was a controversial inquiry, and once we got into it it was a very complex inquiry. It involved boxes and boxes and boxes of papers and contracts and so forth. There were many hearings. There were many people who gave their time to come along and give evidence at those hearings.
What happened in this report is that there has been a series of findings and recommendations and a lot of those findings and recommendations go to the heart of a very complex infrastructure project and the sorts of complexities that surround building something like a prison—a project that was done for the first time here in the ACT that involved, obviously, some very complex sort of arrangements, particularly around security.
I find it pretty astounding that a report is tabled and within a few minutes there are people who get up and decide that they have a complete understanding of what is going on and put their own interpretation on findings and also on recommendations. There is nothing in this report that talks about the opening and electoral advantage and sham. There is nothing in here; it does not exist.
I am also not pleased for the committee to be attacked for their conduct in this inquiry without people taking the time to read through and to see the amount of time and work that has gone into it—the hours and hours of transcripts, the hours and hours of hearings. So I would really appreciate it if people would go away and spend time going through the report, because it does contain some important recommendations. If the ACT is going to continue getting involved in large infrastructure projects and so forth, there are some lessons to be learnt from the AMC around contracts, around lines of communication, around lines of responsibility and so forth.
So I would very much urge everybody to take the time out to read the report. Obviously all the Hansard and submissions are available. As I said, I was not gong to have a say but I feel it is totally necessary.
Mrs Dunne: Not all of the Hansard is available.
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