Page 5868 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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facie substantive motion before the house; that is the notice of motion that we have. He is now standing and moving another motion. He has stated that he agrees with the development. He said it, clearly; the Hansard will show it. I say to you, Mr Speaker, that he is not moving his motion. He is speaking to another thing which he has not given notice of.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, I take the point that you have raised legally, but I am looking at page 310 of House of Representatives Practice, where it says:
It is in order, however, for a Member to vote against his or her own motion ...
I am bringing it back to that. I must say that you have brought forward a very important issue, Mr Collaery, but under the circumstances I am prepared to let Mr Duby proceed. We will review this in consideration of future problems of this kind.
MR DUBY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. To tell you the truth, I have forgotten where I was. Mr Speaker, given the point of order that was taken by Mr Collaery, it might be worthwhile expanding on why I felt it necessary to bring this motion on. This project, the redevelopment of both blocks at Griffith and Forrest, has been a matter which has been in the system, as it were, for some two years. I think it is also a very important issue that needs to be discussed in terms of general business confidence within the community.
Mr Speaker, the variations to the Territory Plan that the Government tabled last week have been involved in the most rigorous process for quite some time. As we are all aware - I hope that all members have availed themselves of the papers available on this matter - there has been a quite rigorous public consultation process on these issues. There has been a response by the Territory Planning Authority in relation to the objections and various objections that were raised by various people and, all in all, the Government, quite rightly, I think, has come to the conclusion that these particular variations should proceed.
Mr Speaker, these variations involve capital construction works of the order of some $3m. In today's economic climate, I think that projects of this nature, given the fact that they have already been through the process and that they have met all the requirements that have been set up by legislation and also the expectations of the community, should be allowed to proceed.
When the Government moved these proposed variations to the plan last Thursday, Mr Collaery moved a disallowance motion on one half of the project. Indeed, if Mr Collaery had moved disallowance of the entire project, this particular motion that I have moved probably would not be in place today.
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