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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 264 ..

MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 5.00 pm, I propose the question:

That the Assembly do now adjourn.

Mr Humphries: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.

Question resolved in the negative.

Debate resumed.

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, the Government likes to take things and slightly misrepresent them. Supposedly, a submission by Jacqui Rees to the Stein inquiry shows that public officials can and do use inside information on redevelopment plans for personal profit, and a big deal was made of that. What she actually wrote - to be fair to Mr Humphries, the reason I picked it up was that he read it all - was that there is a perception that public officials can and do use inside information.

Why would you say to an inquiry on the leasehold system that there is such a public perception? That was the reason why I wanted the inquiry in the first place. I was pushing very hard to establish the inquiry because I knew there was a perception of that. I wanted the inquiry to deal with that perception of inside information about redevelopment plans and so forth. It was something the inquiry had to deal with. It was something they had to wrestle with because there was a public perception that that was the case. Indeed, the inquiry's way of dealing with that public perception was to say, "Yes, we need to have a new set of systems in place to make sure that the systems are not conducive to corruption and get rid of that public perception". That is what it was about. That is why, by the way, I still argue that the Stein report should have been implemented in the form that the inquiry suggested, not in the changed form in which the Government actually implemented it, which led to some other statements by Ms Rees that have been quoted here.

I also noticed the supposed attack on the chief executive of the Department of Urban Services, John Turner. These are the words of Ms Rees:

The chief executive of the Department of Urban Services, John Turner, believes the best planning framework is now in place - it certainly is the best framework for politicians and their cronies. Departmental structures look to short-term solutions, usually to save ministerial necks or help the Government out with its next Budget.

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