Page 1518 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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accordance with the current law. If people have an entitlement to appeal they will be able to do so. I presume that there will be some sort of a public process where they can at least express an opinion, even if they have no legal right to appeal against what is being done. So I am even more puzzled, because I do not believe that there have been any difficulties.
To take a word that Mr Moore used, I do not believe that there is any smell whatsoever associated with this project. I have not detected any. I have detected a difference of opinion between some members of the public who do not think this ought to be done in the fashion in which it is being done - they have one opinion - and the people, including the Housing Trust, who are putting up all the resources, all the money, all the labour and all the work in order to achieve something beneficial there. There are differences of opinion, but I certainly am unaware of any smell.
Then we come to the nub of it. Mr Moore puts a few names on the table and suggests - I repeat, suggests - that these people are doing something illegal, something wrong; that there is something reprehensible about what they are doing. This is the first time I have heard this as well, and I know the players. I know them perhaps even better than Mr Moore does. If he is asserting that there is something improper going on because these people perhaps drink together once in a while, maybe I am guilty. I go to the Raiders game every time they play in town and two seats in front of me, coincidentally, sit Mr Phillips and his wife. I talk to him every time I go to the Raiders game. Is there some association here that suggests that I am involved in some improper fashion with Mr Phillips? I hope that Mr Moore is not suggesting that, because there are remedies for that kind of allegation. Quite frankly, I am surprised that Mr Moore is making these suggestions, because now these people have to disprove the innuendo, the insinuation, the suggestions that Mr Moore has put forward. One has to ask: How can they do that? They cannot have a legal remedy because Mr Moore has immunity from that.
So we come to the bottom line and whether or not I think that there ought to be an investigation or inquiry. I have to conclude that in order to allow these people a forum in which to put their case I have to agree with the notion that there ought to be an inquiry. They have no other remedy, as far as I am aware. While I agree with the Minister that Mr Moore has presented no evidence to suggest that there is anything improper being done, I believe that we have to have an inquiry to clear the air, to get rid of the smell; but the only smell has come from Mr Moore's innuendo, and his insinuation and his suggestion that these people have done something improper. I find that rather distasteful, Madam Speaker; but for that reason alone I will support an inquiry, but not necessarily of the depth that Mr Moore is proposing.
If you read the terms of reference that he has written, he is implying even greater collusion than the two or three names that he has suggested, because he wants people to look at the transport aspect. None of the people that he mentioned have anything to do with transport planning, so is there now somebody else in the transport area who has been involved in some sort of collusion to achieve an objective here? He talks about the health and social impact. Is there somebody in the health organisation who is part of this group of saboteurs who are out to destroy the fabric of the society in Braddon? It worries me. I do not believe that there is any purpose in going into the depths that Mr Moore is asserting, because, Madam Speaker, at the end of the day, when something like this comes up, I believe that the community are the losers.
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