Page 5871 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR KAINE: You can get your chance to speak in a minute, Mr Collaery. Your payroll tax is like several of the others - nothing but a political gimmick because an election is just around the corner.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Relevance, please.
Mr Collaery: We will see about that.
MR KAINE: You have had three years to put these things on the table and you choose the last sitting day of the Assembly. Do not tell me that it is not a political gimmick.
Mr Collaery: It was your portfolio as Chief Minister.
MR KAINE: You opposed most of these things in three years.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Order, Mr Kaine, please!
MR KAINE: Well, if he wants to debate, I will give it to him, Mr Speaker. We happen to be talking about development. This is another case, of course, where the Residents Rally jumps on every convenient band wagon. They claim that they are not anti-development. But every time a development proposal or a redevelopment proposal comes up in any form at all, the Rally opposes it; it wants it to be delayed.
Mr Collaery: That is nonsense. There have been 42 variations and we have opposed four.
MR KAINE: It wants further public consultation. It does not want to make a decision. It does not want to make a decision about anything. They would keep Canberra in the 1950s if they could, despite the fact that the population continues to increase. The city continues to grow and we have to accommodate that growth; and we have to accommodate it in some planned, logical and sensible way.
Now, I defy Mr Jensen. I know that he is going to get up in a minute and say that the proper processes were not followed. It was only yesterday that he claimed that there were defects in another proposal in the suburb of Theodore. He is an expert at nitpicking the thing to death. As the Americans say, you nickel-and-dime a proposal to pieces until it dies, and that is what the Rally is on about.
There is no question that the proper processes for a variation to the lease purpose have been followed. There has been comprehensive community consultation. The Planning Authority has taken into account the community input. They have made a recommendation to the Government. The Government has considered that recommendation in the full knowledge of the facts and has made its decision.
Mr Collaery: Why don't you just join the Labor Party, Trevor?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .