Page 1272 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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What about the Canberra Times site and the 800 workers? It was different from the other sites because, when the Canberra Times site application was lodged, it did not have ministerial approval. That ministerial approval had been granted in the other cases, but not with that particular case.
Let me refer to a press statement from the NCDC that goes back to 6 November 1987. It states:
The NCDC will not support the Concrete Constructions proposal for the redevelopment of the former Canberra Times site in Mort Street, Braddon.
The NCDC commissioner then went on to explain why that was the case. When I put things in time perspective, you will see that, in the Canberra Times site, the result of the particular case was that they had made a very, very poor business decision.
Let me also point out that a ministerial submission dated 14 December 1987 about this site also makes it very clear about who was involved, who understood, who could have taken action about that ministerial approval at the time. A person signed PL - which I take to be Peter Loveday in the National Capital Development Commission, but I may be wrong there - has typed in a note on the side of this ministerial submission, advising the Minister on the background of the refusal to allow that site. It says:
9.45am 14.12.87 and immediately also faxed to Mr Harris's office. I spoke to Paul Whalan of the Minister's staff in Sydney and alerted him to the advice, which he was expecting. I had provided an earlier draft on Friday afternoon which was substantially similar.
At this stage the Minister, probably with the advice of his adviser, was advising that the Canberra Times site development in terms of office blocks not go ahead. The application by Concrete Constructions was put in in late May 1988, six months later. They knew, they understood, that the Minister was not recommending that it go ahead for office blocks.
Let me make it very clear that the present territory planner, who was then the chief planner of the NCDC, opposed - and I have the documents, of course - the development of that site as office blocks on environmental grounds.
Let me move now to the attitude to the court. I think, because I am short of time, it is best set out in Justice Else-Mitchell's letter to the Canberra Times today in which he sets out the role of the court in this case as the arbiter. It is not expected to be an expert. It is set out very eloquently in today's Canberra Times. We have to be
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