Page 502 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 1990
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I believe that at the heart of these allegations lies the fact that, as the Chamber of Commerce pointed to in 1966, we still do not have a clearly defined and unequivocally supported set of legislation. What we have is not really enforceable, not readily understood, and has been applied in a fairly hotchpotch fashion over the years.
One of the difficulties that I faced as Minister for planning was coming to terms with the administration of the lease system and the constant allegations of corruption which had been made, not least by Mr Collaery. It is very regrettable that there is no clear system for dealing with such allegations. In relation to one anonymous allegation of criminality that I received, I was obliged to call in the Australian Federal Police whose subsequent inquiry took over four months. This had occurred before self-government, but it was ongoing during my term of office, as it is during Mr Kaine's term of office. I do not believe it was an appropriate way of dealing with that question, to have to ask the Federal Police to investigate.
The difficulty that I believe existed in that case, and in many other cases, was administrative. Poor decisions may have been made; there may have been poor communication between various officers, and between various officers and their Minister, but I think it was very sad that it had to be dealt with as a criminal matter and by the Federal Police who, with all due respect to them, are not administrative specialists. Despite the patting on the back and the self-congratulations over the way, that is still the situation.
Mr Kaine and Mr Jensen have made much today of having produced comprehensive planning and associated legislation. They have done no such thing. I would like it placed on the record that we have an incomplete set of draft legislation; there is no escaping that fact. I sympathise with them. I understand the difficulty. It is an extremely complex matter, and it will not be dealt with rapidly. I think your rather ill-advised promise to this Assembly to bring forward the legislation by the end of February has unfortunately brought you to this pass.
We still do not have, for instance, the kind of land and leasing legislation that could clear up the difficulties to which other speakers have alluded. We still do not have the approvals and orders legislation that could resolve many of the ambiguities, many of the management and administrative problems, that have arisen in the administration of leases over the years. As Mr Jensen at least acknowledged in his remarks, that legislation is still to come. In the two-and-a-half months that the Kaine Government has been in office, and in the seven months preceding that when it was plotting and planning to be in office, it was not possible for it to develop draft legislation to the point at which it could put it before the Assembly today, and it has not done so. I think the Assembly should acknowledge that fact.
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