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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 385 ..
Mr Moore: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: it is perfectly reasonable for a minister, given a background to a question, to do that. It is perfectly reasonable. The standing orders and previous rulings have made it very clear that a minister can incorporate those sorts of things in his answer.
MR SPEAKER: Continue, Chief Minister; there is no point of order.
MR HUMPHRIES: I was astonished to hear Mr Rebikoff deny-
Mr Corbell: I rise to a point of order, Mr Speaker. Are you going to rule on this matter or are you just going to take your instructions from Mr Moore?
MR SPEAKER: I just said that there was no point of order.
MR HUMPHRIES: I was astonished to hear Mr Rebikoff deny that he had made that statement, and even more astonished to hear Mr Stanhope say on the radio today-
Mr Corbell: Tell us what you are doing, Chief Minister. Answer the question.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am going to, Mr Corbell; be patient. Mr Speaker, astonished to hear this denial that this was said, I rang one of the people who were present at that public meeting and asked them whether they recalled the statement being made by Mr Rebikoff. They said, "No, I do not recall that statement being made, I am sorry." I said that it may be a case of my word versus that of Mr Rebikoff, so I hung up.
I had a call back a few minutes later. He said, "Oh, yes, I do recall it being made. He did make that statement at the public meeting." I said, "I am glad your memory came back to you." He said, "No, it wasn't my memory. I played the tape back of what Mr Rebikoff had had to say at the public meeting." It was all on tape and, indeed, he did make that commitment, Mr Speaker. I will read the words of his commitment as it was made to that meeting:
Most of you would be aware that many years ago, when I was Chair of the national body-the Federation of Ethnic Communities-I worked ... to get additional funding for multicultural broadcasting when multicultural broadcasting was facing some very severe funding cuts.
Here is the crunch, Mr Speaker:
You can be assured that under a Stanhope Labor Government, we will certainly be increasing that support.
"Increasing that support", Mr Speaker. I want to contrast those words with what Mr Stanhope said this morning on the radio. On 2CC this morning he said:
I wasn't at the meeting. Vic Rebikoff denies absolutely and categorically that he said any such thing, that Gary Humphries is simply beating this up, deliberately misrepresenting what Vic said at the meeting.
Mr Corbell: He is.
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