Page 274 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007

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Question put:

That Mr Mulcahy’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

Motion, as amended, agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 12.25 to 2.30 pm.

Questions without notice

Bushfires

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, on 13 May 2004 you advised the Assembly as follows:

It is a matter of record that on the afternoon of Monday, 3 May—Monday last week, budget eve—a member of my staff informed me that telephone records of Mr Mike Castle, the Chief Executive of the Emergency Services Bureau at the time of the bushfires, as tendered to the coronial inquiry, showed he had made a call to my mobile telephone at 7.14 pm on 17 January 2003. I was told that Mr Castle’s records showed the call lasted six seconds.

Chief Minister, why didn’t you take Mr Castle’s call, and did you check your message bank later that evening to see if you had missed any important calls?

MR STANHOPE: I did not take the call—I assume because I did not hear the phone ring or I was otherwise distracted. I cannot remember exactly what I was doing at 7.14 pm on the evening of 17 January 2003. What were you doing at 7.14 pm, Mr Stefaniak? Did you take the call that you received?

Mr Stefaniak: I was actually on a bus to Wollongong.

MR STANHOPE: Yes. I would know if I was on a bus to Wollongong, too. At 7.14 pm—

Mr Stefaniak: Reading a book about the French contribution to World War I.

MR STANHOPE: You, Mr Stefaniak, were obviously seriously alarmed by the circumstances of the territory on 17 January! You left town. Such was the level of

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