Page 752 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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extraordinary headline, "Assembly upgrade plan 'outrageous'", which is a quote by Ms Follett, and since then that report, attributed to Ms Follett, has been put down comprehensively.
Ms Follett: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I fail to see the relevance of those remarks.
MR COLLAERY: I will not pursue that; there will be another opportunity. Going back as far as 13 May 1988, Civil & Civic refer in a letter to significant considerations concerning other flats - the Bega and Allawah Flats sites, for example. In referring to a letter I was tabling, I made no imputation or inference when I used the words "proposing a development by Civil & Civic of the site".
The very fact that disproved any connection was in the letter itself. How could I be misleading the house in law if I tabled the very letter that did not mention Northbourne Flats? There is a fatal flaw in this motion. I am being censured for misleading the house. How could I have misled the house, Mr Speaker, if I tabled the letter that did not mention the Northbourne Flats? It was a letter tabled on the spot in an unprepared moment out of a selection of documents. Members may recall that I separated it.
I am happy shortly to table the complete correspondence and to inform the house - and I am sure members are in a position to corroborate this - that on 15 March, according to my records, I spoke with Mr Alan Johnson, of Civil & Civic, and our conversation centred on the Northbourne Flats. At no time did he say to me, "Oh, it's not the Northbourne Flats, it's some other site". We talked about the Northbourne Flats, Mrs Grassby's initiatives - if we can call them that euphemistically - and the regrettable events that have arisen. I indicated to Mr Johnson, as our Alliance policy states, that this Government is interested in innovative joint venture redevelopment and other aspects of housing that will work towards the continuance and upgrading of public housing, in the interests of our compliance with the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement.
Mr Speaker, this censure motion will backfire. Shortly it will really boomerang. On the notice paper we have a Bill to pass - the Clinical Waste Bill - and that Bill should get through. Since in justice we must respond to this attack, it is now doubtful that we will get to that matter today. I suggest that that is not the way to spend the time of this Assembly productively and fruitfully.
MR BERRY (3.33): Well, it is nice to see Mr Collaery squirming in the face of a good thrashing by the diminutive Mrs Grassby - and a nice public thrashing, I might add; and one that he well deserves. This Assembly has had past experience of the ploys used by Mr Collaery and from the beginning of his campaign, before even being elected by the people of Canberra, he used rumour and innuendo to make
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