Page 5452 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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Government and the community; it is going to be paid for - and, as I say, you have left out any reference to a secretariat. If you have a body such as this, you can bet that it is going to need a secretariat; so, it is not a cheap item. We are talking about a Bill, hopefully, that will minimise the cost to the taxpayer rather than maximise it.
So I am not convinced that such an advisory body is needed. It would be nice to have. If we had unlimited funds, it certainly would be nice to have. At some time in the future, when the economy of the Territory is stronger and we believe that the taxpayer can afford to carry the cost of such a body, it might well be something that we would put in place. But I do not see that there is a need for it now, and for that reason I oppose it at this stage.
I strongly refute any suggestion that the Liberal Party has changed its view on this. The Liberal Party, I remind Mr Jensen, was one of three parties in an Alliance Government, and the final draft of the Bill, as it was when we left the fifth floor, represented the views of the Alliance Government, not the Liberal Party. It speaks for itself, Mr Jensen, that the people who are loudest in proposing this particular aspect of things are members of the Residents Rally.
Let us be clear; it does not represent any change of position from the point of view of the Liberal Party. We are now not bound by an attachment to the Residents Rally to do their bidding; we are free to express a different view, which I do. I repeat that, if and when we think that it is a valuable thing to do and it is something that we think the taxpayer is prepared to pay for, we will review our position on that matter.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (6.35): I think Mr Jensen, on this issue, is out of touch with the community he purports to represent. The proposal for such a committee was rejected by all sectors of the community in the first round of public consultation. At that time the committee was to have up to 15 members drawn from the community and professional organisations.
Mr Kaine: There was a list of skills as long as your arm, not just four.
MR WOOD: Indeed. I would remind Mr Jensen that the proposed committee was rejected because it was seen to undermine the extensive and open consultative mechanisms provided throughout the Bill. When the legislation was released for a second round of consultation the concept of a planning advisory committee had changed to a five-member professional advisory body. Again, in the consultations, the value and role of this body were brought into question.
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