Page 745 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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(2) his threat to a member of this Assembly to take out an injunction to prevent that member from meeting with constituents;
(3) his inability to discharge his ministerial obligations in a fitting manner.
A motion of censure is indeed a very serious step and it is certainly not one that I or members on this side of the Assembly would take lightly and we do not on this occasion either. It is only the most reprehensible behaviour that would move us to make such a motion and only that kind of behaviour that would justify such a motion. Mr Collaery has demonstrated the reprehensible behaviour that is necessary to justify a motion of this gravity. In this Assembly, on Tuesday, 20 March, Mr Collaery attempted to turn the tide in his losing battle with Mrs Grassby over the Northbourne Flats.
The background to this duel involves proposals to redevelop a group of more than 400 flats, part of the public housing stock administered by the ACT Housing Trust. The site on which these flats are located had come to the attention of some property developers - and they are lately the new-found friends of Mr Collaery, of course - as a prime site for redevelopment. These developers, of course, were encouraged in this view by the published policy of the Alliance Government on housing which states, amongst other things:
We will examine the gradual redevelopment or relocation and improvement of some older public housing.
For example, Northbourne Flats - pretty fair sort of encouragement, I would have thought. As well, in a press statement issued by Mr Collaery on 25 January, he said the following, and I will quote it at some length.
The Minister said there were currently big differences in the standards and amenities between new government houses and some older stock. Some imbalances also existed in the disposal pattern of public housing as a result of unrestricted sales in earlier years.
"A carefully planned and monitored sales and replacement strategy will be used -
This is a sales and replacement strategy -
as an effective management tool to correct these anomalies," Mr Collaery said.
He continued:
"In some instances valuable stock no longer suitable for public housing will be sold. This will have a positive effect on public housing as
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