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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 3528 ..

MR QUINLAN: Yes, I could have.

Mr Humphries: You said you couldn't before.

MR QUINLAN: No, Mr Humphries. Don't push it.

Mr Hargreaves: You're Gary-ing it.

MR QUINLAN: Don't push it. Listen. The sense of what I was saying is that I went to Melbourne and he went to Darwin. I don't apologise for the fact that this government sent its Chief Minister and Auditor-General to the Police Ministers Council.

Mr Hargreaves: Attorney-General.

MR QUINLAN: Attorney-General, sorry. I wish he was the Auditor-General; that would be handy. My being on leave officially until the Tuesday the arrangements were: he goes there. It was going to be on the Monday, the other one on Tuesday. Melbourne is down here on the map; Darwin is up there. There is a long way in between, and a lot of time to get there.

MR PRATT: Thank you for the geography lesson. I have a supplementary question. In terms of the sense of what you had meant to say, Minister, does your absence from the past three meetings of the Police Ministers Council-which discussed important issues such as gun control, the Australian Crime Commission and the international terrorist threat at home-reflect your lack of interest in the police portfolio?

Mr Stanhope: We might just go through the minutes of the last seven years of ministerial councils. How many ATSIA meetings did you attend-how many Aboriginal affairs meetings in seven years? There is no record of the Liberals attending a single meeting in seven years.

Mr Smyth: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: is the Chief Minister out of order by interjecting?

MR SPEAKER: Order, Chief Minister!

MR QUINLAN: I overheard a very salient point from Mr Stanhope. I have forgotten the numbers, but I checked and you weren't particularly assiduous in your time. But I can understand that. As I have told this place previously, I am on, I think, 14 ministerial councils.

Mr Smyth: Is that all? I was on 23.

Mr Humphries: We all were.

MR QUINLAN: Yes, and you did not attend all the meetings, Mr Humphries. The point has been made.

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