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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 3956 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I also wanted the Committee to examine the Government's recent call for expressions of interest in the redevelopment of the Manuka carpark ...

In fact, the Assembly has written to the Minister on that, asking whether or not the Manuka car park development, for which they have called for expressions of interest, is inconsistent with the Territory Plan. If it is inconsistent with the Territory Plan, then it requires a variation of the Territory Plan; under the legislation, the Minister would recognise it; and, therefore, it must come to the committee. That is an issue still to be dealt with. It may well be dealt with by the committee anyway, either by reference from this Assembly or by the committee taking that issue on itself. Ms Horodny went on to say:

... which will have a major impact on the retail hierarchy in South Canberra and contradicts the Government's own Retail Policy ...

I have grave doubts about whether that is completely true. It strikes me as one of those half-truths, and I would like to hear Ms Horodny justify how she believes it contradicts the Government's own retail policy. I do not agree with the Government's own retail policy. It is the Greens that do, which allowed it to be implemented. Yet Ms Horodny raises this point. But even more interesting, Mr Speaker, is Ms Horodny's suggestion:

I am disappointed that the other Committee members, by refusing to move from their entrenched positions over the retail trading hours issue, have undermined the Committee process ...

This is projectionism; this is the Greens thinking about themselves and projecting it onto other members, because the only entrenched position was by the Greens, who supported the Government position and said, "We are going to have this position; we are going to have a certain thing happen on retail hours; then you can look into it". That is what the entrenched position is. It was that entrenched position that gave us very little room to move. Mr Kaine, as a member of the committee - a decision having been made by the Government and having been voted on by the Assembly - also had very little room to move; and we understand that. That is why it is that, when Ms McRae and I sat down and looked at this and went through it, we believed we would waste committee time by pursuing this issue any further. I am hoping I am not misrepresenting Ms McRae; I believe that is a fair representation of what we thought.

We choose to set priorities in what we do. We can put a huge amount of time into this issue of retail trading hours, on top of the work already being done by the Government. We suggested that the Government follow up on some other issues. We have a choice. Do we put in a huge amount of time - because to do what Ms Horodny wants is an absolutely huge project for a committee that is already undertaking quite a deal of work - with the chance of having no change in outcome? Why would we be involved in going through a major process, with no change in outcome? To me, that is why it is that the report that we table now, which, as you can see, is very thin, is based effectively on administrative grounds - we choose a set of priorities and we do not choose to waste our time on something that is going to have no effect.

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