Page 1519 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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In talking about a "level playing field" for potential developers, the motion suggests that when a developer puts forward a proposal he should then get in open competition to see whether he can get the contract for his own proposal. I would submit that no developer is going to put forward any proposal for redevelopment in Canberra if that is going to be the case. There will be no redevelopment, except what the Government can afford. No developer is going to spend a lot of his own money developing proposals and putting them to the Government if he is then told, "That is lovely, that is fine; but now you are going to have to get into competition with all the other developers in town to see whether we can put it into effect". That will work to the detriment of this community and this society.
The other way in which there will be some detriment is the one which, I think, Mr Wood referred to. If individuals from the private sector who get involved, very often on a voluntary basis, in the business of government are going to then be held up to ridicule, to criticism, to insinuation, to innuendo, that somehow or other they have their fingers in the till, you are going to lose the services of people who bring a great deal to the Government and do a great deal in the interests of this community. I do not believe that we, as members of this Assembly, can afford to have either of those two things happen. The air does need to be cleared and, for that reason alone, I will support an inquiry; but I certainly will not agree to one that goes to the depths and the lengths that Mr Moore is proposing.
MR LAMONT (4.25): Madam Speaker, it is somewhat difficult to deal in any logical order with the issues raised in Mr Moore's address. I say that because there was no logic in the way in which they were structured and the innuendo contained therein. I would suggest that it was more attuned to some satirical piece that would appear in the Canberra Times describing a mythical place called "The Bar" in Wandin Valley. If that is the sum total of Mr Moore's accusations and allegations about the need for an inquiry into section 22 in Braddon, then I believe that he has dismally failed to convince anybody in this Assembly that such a course of action is necessary.
However, I do agree with the comments made both by the Minister and by Mr Kaine, a member of the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee of this Assembly, that we have no choice but to have an inquiry. We have no choice but to allow those people who have been maligned in Mr Moore's comments at least a right to say to somebody that the innuendo, the character assassination which has occurred here this afternoon, is wrong and should be answered, and to have their views tabled in this Assembly.
What Mr Moore is suggesting, in a range of fairly veiled accusations, is that the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee of this Assembly has been corrupted in some way, that it has been got at or nobbled in some way. I might add, Madam Speaker, that the logical extension of the veiled innuendos and the character assassination that he has undertaken this afternoon means that the other 16 members of this Assembly - all except Mr Moore - are also involved, because every variation to the Territory Plan that has come before this Assembly since March 1992 has been dealt with by the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee. Mr Moore had the right to move disallowance, and I might add, Madam Speaker, that he did not do so in relation to section 22 in Braddon. If memory serves me correctly, Mr Moore did not even speak on the matter.
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