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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4785 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

However, the questions we asked today were very carefully formulated. The Chief Minister was given ample warning. They are matters of public importance. Any one of us knows people who have lost their jobs, lost their futures, lost any number of important things because they have crashed their car.

Mr Humphries: Crashed their car? What rubbish!

MS McRAE: Yes; because of the very laws that we have constructed, which include being at the scene of an accident. I have given you, of all people, Mr Speaker, perhaps the most tedious of lectures of all about how to do your job, to which you listened very patiently. I must commend you for your handling of the no-confidence motion.

Part of my theme, then, is part of the theme that we were trying to get the Chief Minister to accept today. It is as much what you are seen to be doing as what you actually do. The issue that the Chief Minister refused to answer today, refused to deal with today, refused to engage in today, was the issue of how her behaviour is perceived, how her behaviour is understood, how her behaviour impacts on the rest of the ACT. She had every opportunity to answer the questions, which she does with great talent at most times, and she refused. We were all ruled out of order. During question time, Mr Speaker, you have often not pulled people into line for relevance or pulled people into line to answer in any different way. The Chief Minister could have chosen to answer in any way at all. She refused to confront the serious issues that are a consequence of unpleasant accidents.

No-one ever wants to be involved in an accident. We have full sympathy for what Mrs Carnell was involved in. However, the stories were running, the inconsistencies were running, the apparent discrepancies in stories were running; and all Mrs Carnell had to do - - -

Mr Humphries: And you were pushing them along, were you not? You were pushing them along and making them happen.

MS McRAE: You were pushing them along, Mr Humphries, and you have pushed them along.

Mr Humphries: They were being given a big help along by Mr Berry in particular.

MS McRAE: If Mr Humphries maintains his interjections because he wants me to pay a bit of attention, all right. He is pushing them along because he is refusing in an open forum to allow the proper story to be told. Any story at all could have been told. It was not told. The substance of the questions was not listened to. The question that I asked was carefully framed and was not listened to.

Mr Humphries: She told the full story today, and you heard it.

Mr Whitecross: She did not, Gary, and you know it.

Mr Humphries: She did.

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