Page 3993 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 15 Sept 2009
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exact quote in front of me. But we were basically given an indication that the original price at which the Canberra community was sold this infrastructure investment was never, in fact, a true price. I think that is a really dishonest way to have a discussion about what infrastructure we want in this territory.
There is always debate about what is the best infrastructure, what is the right one, is this the choice, should we be thinking about a range of other possible options. If we are going to have such inaccurate pricing in the first instance, real questions arise about how we talk about infrastructure development in this city and what role our territory-owned corporations in particular play in that process. On the one hand, they are owned by the government, but, on the other hand, they are at arm’s length from the government with seemingly limited accountability mechanisms.
As I said earlier, we will come back to this discussion on Actew tomorrow. I note Mrs Dunne has put up a motion and we will be discussing this in greater detail. I do hope that the government facilitates the delivery to the Assembly of as much information about this project and the cost blow-out as they are able to, because this is an important matter for this Assembly to be discussing.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.13): I think we all need to have a bit of a reality check here. Ms Gallagher, the Treasurer, spent most of her time talking about Totalcare. This government, the Stanhope-Gallagher government as part of the whole regime of Stanhope governments, has been in place now for eight years. Eight years is long enough for a government to put its mark on the administration of the territory and, indeed, any territory-owned corporation. Eight years. If you have to seek recourse to events of more than eight years ago to somehow cover what you have been doing for the last eight years, then, of course, you are just talking about your own signs of failure.
What we need to do is perhaps consider more properly the role of Rhodium. Rhodium was created out of Totalcare. It was created by Ted Quinlan. Ted Quinlan, the Labor Treasurer, brought the Rhodium bill into this place. Rhodium is the creature of the Stanhope government. All issues relating to Rhodium are at the feet of the government. You have to ask: what was Ms Gallagher’s role in this? Well, Ms Gallagher’s role in this was simply to run away. When she was asked in question time about what was her role in Rhodium, what did she have to say? This is from 26 September 2006, for those members that were not here:
Deputy Chief Minister, have you been derelict in your duty?
MS GALLAGHER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. For the information of members, I have been a shareholder of Rhodium Asset Solutions Ltd since March this year.
“Don’t blame me. I’ve only been here for six months. I haven’t done anything to fix it, but don’t blame me. Blame Ted. Blame Jon. Blame everybody else, but let’s not take responsibility.” As to the question as to whether or not she was derelict in her duty:
No, I have not been derelict in my duties. I take my duties as a shareholder of ACTEW, Rhodium and ACTTAB very seriously. But I think you will find that the large part of the investigation predated my term as a shareholder of that company.
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