Page 1572 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
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The min co itself commenced today, Thursday, at 9 am and will be finished by COB that day. The min co is here in Canberra. There was an understanding in my office that the terminology “finished by COB” would mean an indeterminate time. This is the bit that I wish the chamber to know. I gave an instruction to my office to advise Mr Hanson’s office this morning that should the ministerial council finish early, given that it was in Canberra, there was a likelihood that the Treasurer would return to the chamber. That instruction from my office was not conveyed to Mr Hanson’s office, and for that I give Mr Hanson an unqualified apology. It is my fault that the information was not conveyed to the opposition. I would also like the record to show, Mr Speaker, that I had no communication with the Greens on this issue either. I hope that will satisfy the chamber as to what the circumstances were.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Health and Minister for Industrial Relations): I also seek leave to make a personal explanation under standing order 46.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Treasurer.
MR GALLAGHER: Further to Mr Hargreaves, may I offer my sincere apologies to the opposition that they came in here unprepared for question time, or unprepared in the sense that they thought I was not going to be here and I was. I obviously ruined the last hour for them and my most sincere apologies for that.
MR HANSON (Molonglo): Mr Speaker, may I say something?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: I certainly would like to accept Mr Hargreaves’s apology and I appreciate that he has made that. I think that the question that I asked, that was ruled out of order, was more about how it was that the Greens seemed to be informed when we did not. I am not trying to allege some sort of conspiracy here. I accept your apology, Mr Hargreaves.
Ms Gallagher: And mine?
MR HANSON: Yours was given in a slightly different manner and I will have to consider whether I will accept that one or not.
Supplementary answer to question without notice
Planning—rural leases
MR BARR: Last week in question time Ms Bresnan asked me several questions about the length of rural leases in the Naas valley in the context of the ACT’s water security plans and Actew’s planning for a possible Tennent dam.
Actew advise me that it is very unlikely that they would require the land in the immediate future. The corporation have advised that the enlarged Cotter Dam and Murrumbidgee to Googong water transfer projects are scheduled for completion in
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