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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2346 ..

MR STANHOPE: We accept the argument that every member of cabinet and every public servant who involved themselves in this process over the last 11 years did so on an understanding that they had 30 years.

Mr Humphries: So they would have made different decisions if they had known they were going to be exposed after 10 years?

MR STANHOPE: Who knows?

Mr Humphries: It must be the case if you are concerned about it.

MR STANHOPE: Who knows? Perhaps that is the case. It is just a matter of equity and principle. Perhaps it is not something any of you individually are concerned about, but there are other cabinet ministers not here. You can each stand up as cabinet ministers and say, "I have nothing to hide. I do not care." But nobody I am aware of has asked other cabinet ministers who are not here today to answer for themselves. That is irrelevant to the principle anyway. There is a whole range of public servants who also lodged submissions.

Mr Moore: You were not worrying about them with the Bruce Stadium papers.

MR STANHOPE: Perhaps there are some exceptions. When we were aware of a major scandal, a laughable attempt at administration that we perceived in relation to Bruce Stadium, perhaps there was a real interest in having access to some of those documents. Nevertheless, we have never suggested that cabinet documents should have been made available to this Assembly, and I have certainly never suggested that a cabinet decision or any cabinet document that was protected by an exemption under the FOI Act should be made available to me. What you are sprouting here is bunkum. At no stage have I or anybody else on this side suggested that protections available under the Freedom of Information Act for the non-disclosure of cabinet documents should have been ignored in relation to Bruce Stadium.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services) (3.59): I will be opposing the amendments that Mr Humphries has put up. We ought to be making sure that these documents are available. I do not comprehend what people are afraid of.

Mr Humphries: What are you doing with my amendments?

Mr Stanhope: I am supporting your amendments.

MR MOORE: Mr Stanhope indicates that he is supporting Mr Humphries' amendments. He explained that he has a different view on prospectivity and retrospectivity. What are you trying to hide? I am not quite sure.

Mr Stanhope: Let us make it a week. Give us Hall/Kinlyside, Bruce Stadium, the hospital implosion.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Please stop interjecting.

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