By Jorian Gardner
THE ACT Liberals were desperate to get their hands on copies of the ACT Budget earlier than the 2pm hand out as promised by the Labor Government, mistakenly they thought they had access from 1pm.
Keen to prepare quickly to respond to Treasurer Stanhope’s Budget, one of them tried to beat the 2pm deadline. A staffer from shadow treasurer Brendan Smyth’s office quietly made her way, unnoticed by Treasury officials, into the lock up and picked up the relevant documents and headed straight into the female toilets.
One bright spark, reportedly from Minister Andrew Barr’s office, saw the incident, tipped of other officials who found her hiding in the toilets where she was stripped of her files (although we understand she managed to get away with some clandestine copies. Where DID she hide them?) and was promptly escorted from the lock-up.