Page 4524 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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MR COLLAERY: I imagine that I am not, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. I will desist. I believe that I have made my point. That is the climate in which this decision making process operates. Then add to that a lobbyist who served five Federal Ministers, Mr Paul Whalan, who inhabited the corridors of this Assembly constantly during one week and, as was conceded in question time, ambushed his former Assembly colleague Mr Bill Wood on this issue. Someone of that skill, someone of that negotiating standard, is a very influential force to have about the Assembly. I wonder whether residents of Forrest had the same access and had the same ability to influence the Government, Mr Kaine, and any others that he spoke with. That is another issue about the climate.
The final climatic issue is that we are still denied, as Mr Moore said, the possibility of putting local ideas into the urban design process. They picked a beauty here because the cream of urban design consciousness seems to be involved in the Forrest protest. There were some suggestions during the hearing, particularly by Mr Kaine, that the Residents Rally had stirred this one up. No such thing. The Rally simply helped groups coordinate and walked away from the process. Those people involved include some of the foremost lawyers, town planners, architects and conservation architects in this nation, certainly in this Territory.
There is, of course, a total denial of that intellectual strength. Those who heard Professor Judith Brine speaking to the committee would be ashamed to think of how it was brushed aside. It was not brushed aside to one extent, however. Mr Kaine accepted on behalf of the Liberal Party that he had serious concerns about the old clubhouse and the original green. Well, we will put him to the test now. I come to Mr Kaine's contribution to the process. He indicated that, sadly, the planning changes have not occurred yet; that the new legislation is not in place; that this fateful decision, therefore, takes place under no improper or wrong procedures but under the anachronistic procedures, and that the Government has done the right thing. I imagined that I was hearing a government spokesperson talking at that stage and I was concerned.
The fact is that it is very open to Mr Kaine, with the power he has, simply to reflect the spirit of the incoming legislation and accept that these residents and the community at large - as Dr Kinloch indicated, because we all have a share in this issue - are being overridden. I call upon the Liberal Party to apply the spirit of the legislation which, in a couple of hours' time, this afternoon, they are going to support. I heard Mr Kaine supporting it on the radio this morning. Why not apply the spirit now and worry about the letter later, or never, because the letter of the law, as we all learnt in urban protests in this city over the years, to our great financial cost and personal detriment, is no protection.
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