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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (16 April) . . Page.. 929 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, the naivety of some of those opposite is just breathtaking. That provision in the Territory Plan you are quoting is not the only basis on which a preliminary assessment can be conducted.

Ms Horodny: It is one of the things.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is one of the mandatory triggers for it; but on any number of bases a preliminary assessment can be conducted. Mr Speaker, this Government would not be proceeding with development on any contaminated site, much less doing so without having a preliminary assessment. So, Mr Speaker, the claim made by Ms Horodny that somehow development might be proceeding in the Territory without preliminary assessments is completely baseless and irresponsible to make, and contrary to her duty as a member of this parliament to treat the people of the ACT without unduly alarming them on issues of this kind. You are not the first person to come along in this place being concerned about the environment. It would have been very easy indeed for people preceding you to have made a meal out of contaminated sites issues. We were on the opposition benches a couple of years ago, and we refrained from doing that. This Opposition is now in that position and has refrained from doing it. But you people on the crossbenches - you Greens, so-called - are not afraid to chase an ambulance or a vote if you see one, and you should be ashamed of that fact.

Mr Speaker, there is no requirement for that register to be in place to hold preliminary assessments. They can be and they are being held now, and they would be if there were development proposals in respect of contaminated sites. But, to my knowledge, there have not been any such proposals, and therefore the issue does not arise. Mr Speaker, next time the Greens over there jump up, bristling with indignation because the Government appears to have done something while an Assembly inquiry is going on, I suggest that they look back at their own press release. I ask them: What exactly is the Government supposed to do? When the Assembly holds an inquiry to determine issues like whether there should be a register of contaminated sites, are we supposed to sit back and do nothing, anticipate what the committee is going to find and do it ahead of the committee, or what? What exactly are we supposed to do?

Ms Horodny: Read your own Territory Plan; that is what you should do.

MR HUMPHRIES: We do not need to enact a register to hold preliminary assessments, Ms Horodny.

Ms Horodny: Yes, you do.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, you do not.

Ms Horodny: Yes, you do.

MR HUMPHRIES: Do, do, do, do! Mr Speaker, I really have given up on the Greens. They are off on some sort of green planet somewhere, completely inaccessible by ordinary mortal logic. All I can say is that perhaps one day I can sit down quietly with Lucy and explain to her what is going on; but the fact is - - -

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