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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 404 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

I know that the question was asked on 6 December. I also know that the answer was due on 5 January. I know that union bans were not put on until 31 January. May I also inform the Assembly that the ambulance account write-offs were readily available. The ACTION write-offs were provided on 5 January. Information was provided by the Environment and Land Bureau on 10 January; City Parks, on 12 January; the services and information branch of the Department of Urban Services, on 10 January; City Services, on 16 January; the Attorney-General's Department, on 10 January. Bear in mind that the bans did not start until 31 January. Information from the Chief Minister's Health and Community Care Department and information on act of grace payments were also readily available. Given that you told the Assembly that the information was not available and could not be coordinated, is it not true that you are deliberately trying to prevent that information from becoming public and that you have misled the Assembly as to your motivation for not answering the question?

MRS CARNELL: Answer: No. The entity that was coordinating those questions was OFM. As you would know, significant bans were on in OFM and are still on in OFM. That is probably the reason none of us are going to be paid.

MR BERRY: The bans did not come on until 31 January. When will you apologise to the house, Mrs Carnell, for misleading the house, when the information that you were unable to provide could, all of a sudden, be provided in less than two hours? A well-thumbed batch of papers turned up here less than two hours after Mrs Carnell had said that 200 union bans were stopping her producing them. I have drawn your attention to the fact that the bans did not go on until 31 January and that a whole heap of information was available. When will you apologise for misleading the chamber?

MRS CARNELL: I can make it very clear to this Assembly that I had never seen the answer to that question until I got it last night. In fact, I still have not had a chance to read it all the way through. We gave it directly to the Assembly the moment it came in from OFM. My understanding and my advice are that certain bits of it were available in OFM, but bans were stopping it being collated. That was overcome yesterday afternoon because the Assembly asked for it to be done. I understand that it was a result of a management instruction last night because the Assembly asked for it to happen. I think that is an appropriate response to this Assembly.

MR HIRD: My question is directed to Mr De Domenico in his capacity as Minister for Business, Employment and Tourism. Could the Minister inform the parliament about the new product known as FootyTAB, which I understand was introduced by ACTTAB last week?

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