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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 527 ..


MR SPEAKER: Order! The question related to a specific company.

MR HUMPHRIES: There was an assessment of ENERGEX's proposal under the expressions of interest process, like all the other expressions of interest, until the point where it was rated very lowly and they were told that there was no further interest by ACTEW in their proposal.

Mr Stanhope: No meetings, no lunches?

MR HUMPHRIES: I do not know how they conducted those processes, Mr Stanhope, but I do know - - -

Mr Stanhope: Tell us the full story.

MR HUMPHRIES: I will tell you the full story. The full story is that your lot's statements that there was an offer on the table from ENERGEX are false. Yesterday I was asked the following question in this place by Mr Quinlan:

Were you aware, when making that categorical assertion, that both the CEO of ACTEW and the CEO of your department had informed an interested, substantial organisation that a decision had already been made? Did you either mislead the house or are you simply not in the loop?

The fact is that I am in the loop and Mr Quinlan may have misled the house yesterday by asserting that the CEO of my department had informed an interested substantial organisation that a decision had already been made. Mr Speaker, you can tell that that statement by Mr Quinlan yesterday was false by the fact that the letter from - - -

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I think he has to withdraw "may have misled".

MR HUMPHRIES: I will rephrase my comment, Mr Speaker. Could it be that Mr Quinlan misled the house concerning his comments about the CEO of my department informing an interested substantial organisation that a decision had already been made? Mr Quinlan ought to have known better because the letter from Q Network, Mr Albert Oberdorf, dated 28 February, ends with this sentence:

I discussed this matter with the Under Treasurer, who advised me to wait until a decision had been made in regard to the AGL proposal.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. "Could it be that Mr Quinlan misled". If you want to allow that, okay, as long as we can use it ourselves.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries rephrased his question. There is no point of order and you are simply interfering with the answer to the question. Would you mind repeating what you said, Mr Humphries, before you were interrupted.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, Mr Speaker. In fact, I will quote Mr Quinlan's question to me of yesterday, if that suits Mr Berry's mind. Mr Quinlan said:


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