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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 835 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I have no difficulty with those applications going out and some work being done to assess who are the sorts of people who would be appropriate. It would seem to me, even if we were to recommend and to put a motion through the Assembly to establish a land management authority, that the people who apply for that are likely to be the same people who would apply for the positions in the system that Mr Humphries has presented here. I would not read this motion as precluding Mr Humphries from making those advertisements under those circumstances.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.41): Mr Speaker, I have to agree with Mr Kaine. I am not sure that there is a great deal of merit in referring this matter to the Planning and Environment Committee; but, clearly, there have been discussions already on the floor of the chamber about doing that. Obviously, we are presented with a fait accompli; so I will not spend too much time crying over it. I do welcome the reporting date. It will be quite useful.

I want to refer to what Ms Horodny said about having had advance copies of the document. Mr Speaker, I did make two advance copies of the document available to two members on this floor. One was Ms McRae, as the Opposition spokesperson on planning; the other was Mr Moore, because he has shown a very strong interest in this issue. I felt that in a sense the person who engendered the Stein report in the first place deserved some capacity to see that in advance. It was not a case of saying, "I will play the Labor Party and the Independents off against the Greens", or anything like that. It was just a case of doing so. Ms Horodny invites me to generate more cooperation with the Greens on - - -

Mr Berry: You thought the Greens were interested only in the trees. You got a big shock.

MR HUMPHRIES: I was saving paper.

Ms Horodny: Why did you not just make it available generally to everyone? Why did you make that decision?

MR HUMPHRIES: No, I am sorry; this was a sensitive document which ought to have been carefully embargoed until it was delivered. I am sorry; making it available to everybody was not my intention. I would not have done so. I would make it available to people with a particular interest in this, for particular reasons. Had you asked me, I would certainly have made it available. I am sorry; I did not think of making it available to you.

Ms Horodny: I asked you on the floor. You still did not make it available.

MR HUMPHRIES: Let me make a point here about cooperation with the Greens. You say that we should be giving you some incentives to cooperate. With respect, we have given you plenty of those incentives in the past and it has not done the Government one iota of good. Look at your voting record.

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