Page 2277 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 1 November 1989
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I do not propose to take my full speaking time because the report will speak for itself. Given the fact that I have made some additional comments in the report, I feel that the report should stand as a committee document. I conclude by saying, as chairman, that this was a difficult study for me. I deplored at one stage personal attempts to influence me and, in particular, personal approaches to me by one or two parties who sought to put more direct influence on me in my deliberations on this committee. Regrettably, those parties were not the proponents of the development. They were alternative parties who sought, ironically, at a time when I was in fact arguing for their interests, to suborn my activities on this committee and put undue, unnecessary and improper pressure upon me. Of course I rejected those approaches, and I think the public record speaks for itself.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (10.39): Despite the kind of pressure that the chairman has referred to - and I must say that all members of the committee have been, to some degree, subjected to the kind of pressure that he refers to, perhaps not in such a personal and direct way - the significance of this report is so great that clearly there were a lot of people, a lot of interests, who felt that their view should be heard, and that view was not always expressed through the medium of the committee hearings. So I think the report is a significant one, and I think that the solution that it recommends ought to be an acceptable one.
This matter has clearly been one of some concern to every member of this Assembly. I referred this matter to the committee in the first place because I thought that it required an in-depth discussion and debate - perhaps in greater depth than could have been pursued on the floor of the house. Of course, we had to make sure that anybody that had an interest was given an opportunity, and plenty of time, to make his or her view known, and I believe that the committee process has allowed that to occur.
The big dilemma, of course, is that it is very difficult for this legislature to appear to be setting aside a ruling of the Supreme Court of the ACT. It is a question of just what relevance and what importance that ruling has and whether or not we are pitting ourselves against the judiciary in this matter. I would hope that the court does not see it in that light. It certainly is not, in my view, our intention. It was a case of that ruling having to be reviewed because of the significance and the importance of that ruling for the future well-being - economic well-being in particular - of the ACT. That is not to say that we can set aside the environmental and the social matters that emerge from the problem. But it gave us a dilemma as to just how far we as a committee should go in recommending to this Assembly a course of action. Of course, the dilemma now resides with the members of this Assembly because ultimately it has to be the decision of this Assembly as a
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