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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2319 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Perhaps that is not what you said-that is just what you did. That is what is in my transcript.

Mr Quinlan: Oh, no, it was part of it. I confess.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Quinlan continued:

But, of course, having come up the next year with the $100 million you couldn't sustain it, of course. It went back to $148 million. And then $131 million. And it only turned around when government funding turned around.

Mr Speaker, it is a little bit like reading Chinese to know what he means by all of that but my interpretation is that he is suggesting fairly clearly that the former Chief Minister and the former Under Treasurer somehow set out to fiddle the books to concoct a figure of $344 million.

First of all, as we would all surely know by now, having had it repeated endlessly in this place, the operating loss of $344 million related to the 1995-96 financial year, not the 1996-97 financial year.

Mr Quinlan: Carnell. Was that a Carnell year? I think it was.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, the legacy of Labor, of course, was very keenly felt in that year.

Mr Quinlan: Was it the first year? No.

MR HUMPHRIES: It improved to $171 million as a loss-

Mr Hargreaves: Who was the chairperson at the time?

Mr Quinlan: I think it was-

MR SPEAKER: I warn you, Mr Quinlan.

MR HUMPHRIES: It improved to $171 million in 1996-97 and improved further to $129 million in 1997-98.

Mr Speaker, to suggest that there has been, as Mr Quinlan himself said, a fiddling with accounting in this seems to suggest that some kind of aspersion is being cast on members of the public service. Mr Lilley is expressly named in the comments that Mr Quinlan made yesterday.

Yesterday, Mr Quinlan also seemed to be confirming that a reading of the books from that time, such as they were, suggested that in fact it was reasonable to assume that the figure the Auditor-General confirmed of $344 million was a reasonable and sustainable figure. How then would one fiddle the books in those circumstances? Obviously only by going back and doctoring or changing documents that were underneath the audited accounts-transaction records within departments themselves.

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