Page 1514 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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for urban consolidation; assess whether new appeal mechanisms are adequate, quick enough, accessible and cheap; and consider how consultation processes can be improved. The inquiry should report to the Minister, as I would see it, by 6 August 1993, and the report should be tabled in the first week of sitting after that date. Mr Deputy Speaker, I foreshadow that at the end of this debate I shall seek leave to move a motion to that effect.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (3.59): Mr Deputy Speaker, it has been difficult over this period to keep up with Michael Moore. I said in this Assembly, and I said to Mr Moore on at least one occasion if not on others, that I had no in-principle objection to an inquiry; it was just that I had not been given any good reason to have an inquiry. That reason, however, has become evident today. The reason has nothing at all to do with design and siting, even though Mr Moore may claim it. It has nothing at all to do with the process that he has commented on today. I am convinced that it has nothing at all to do with concern for residents in that area. The reason he wants his inquiry, which has become clear only today, is one of bitterness or disappointment over the years, for whatever reason. He is attacking individuals, I think on entirely spurious grounds; certainly no grounds have been presented to this Assembly today.
Mr Moore said early in his speech that he is not suggesting that there has been anything illegal. Then he goes on later and says that there is a smell around this. He has cast aspersions, innuendos and inferences. On the one hand he says that there is nothing illegal, but on the other he is making all sorts of most serious allegations. All he has claimed as evidence is that there are three or four people - I do not know whether this is the case or not - who might occasionally, or more regularly - I do not know what he meant by that - drink together. That is the evidence he presents in this Assembly to malign a number of people and to call for an inquiry.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I think it is a disgrace. If Mr Moore has some evidence about improper associations, wrongful use of knowledge or anything of that nature to support an inquiry, this is the place for it. He said, for example, that Mr Phillips was able to have access to information - I do not recall whether he used the word "privileged" - that was not generally available. I think he has been influenced by Mr John Hatton in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and wants to follow that mode. The proper course if you have those concerns is to give me some evidence. There is no evidence. What will we see tomorrow but claims of smells? I can predict the headline in the paper - "Moore wants investigation because of smells in the planning process". That is what will be the lead, and that will be a legitimate lead because that is what Mr Moore said. But the concerned citizen would be wanting then to read on to see what evidence Mr Moore presented to justify what he said, and there is not a bit of evidence.
I have been getting letters from people, as Mr Moore says, reputable people, about an inquiry, and there has been some talk about design and siting and some talk about process, but that is not Mr Moore's concern. None of those letters and none of Mr Moore's approach to me have ever mentioned anything about the suspicions that he is now floating in this Assembly and more broadly in the community. If Mr Moore had come to me honestly in February, whenever he made his first approach, and said, "I am very concerned", if he had been specific and had been prepared to put this down, I would have had to have an inquiry;
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