Page 5686 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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governments or agencies were engaging in a dangerous demolition utilising explosives, the public not be advised, so as to avoid the precise event that occurred at the Canberra Hospital. That is my advice.
My advice is that, as a result of that experience, as a result of the coronial inquest into the death of a child as a result of an implosion at the Royal Canberra Hospital, the decision was taken that in future we would not advertise that an implosion, that an explosion, was to occur, in order not to attract sightseers to the site. So that is why there was no warning. There was no warning for that very reason. A conscious decision was taken, I understand, as a result of the coronial inquest into the Royal Canberra Hospital explosion, that in future we not advertise explosions. So, Mr Coe, there was no warning.
MR COE: A supplementary, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Coe.
MR COE: Chief Minister, are you tainting the inquiry and potentially tarnishing the reputation of a person at risk by speaking so freely before the result of the investigation has been tabled?
MR STANHOPE: Not at all. There will be an inquiry into all these issues. I have simply outlined facts. I have outlined facts as provided to me in relation to the issue which you raised in your question. The facts are precisely and exactly as I have put to you and as were put to me in relation to this particular incident. Those were the times.
The times were: at five to six, the first contact was made. A person was advised not to enter the site. The person disregarded and ignored that advice and entered the site. That person is timed as having left the site at 6.30, five minutes after the explosion. He remained within the exclusion zone for 40 minutes. Those are the facts as given to me.
They raise questions. They raise serious questions as to how it happened, why it happened, why that person disregarded that particular request, why that person remained in the exclusion zone. Why, indeed, was he not sighted? Why was he not seen within the site? Why did the two groups at Lady Denman Drive not reveal his presence? Why did the marshals on the bike path not see him? What route did he take to get from the site where he was asked not to enter the site to the point where he was seen leaving the exclusion zone 40 minutes later?
These are issues that are being put forward. But those are the facts that have been given to me, the advice given to me by the department, and those issues, of course, and the consequences to the questions raised are all being investigated, as they should be. The department accepts absolutely that the department must satisfy for itself why its systems allowed this to happen.
Bimberi Youth Justice Centre—assaults
MR HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services. Minister, a number of assaults have occurred at Bimberi this
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