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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 251 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The Government has not removed Ms Rees, as Mr Moore has already said today, from advisory boards like the Kangaroo Advisory Committee, which is about gaining community input. It is an advisory board. However, the Government, after a great deal of patience, could not continue to accept Ms Rees's presence on the Interim Kingston Foreshore Development Authority board. This is not a community advisory board. It is a commercial board involved in a major redevelopment project. If Mr Moore would like to have a look at the basis of the set-up of the Kingston board, he would know perfectly well that that is true. It is a decision-making board. It is clearly unacceptable for someone who repeatedly and unfairly attacks public servants and the city's planners to continue on a commercial board tasked with a major redevelopment project. In contrast with what Ms Rees claims, the community input into the Kingston foreshore project came not from Ms Rees but from a detailed community consultation process, culminating in a design brief which forms part of the current design competition. The community brief, the competition process, and the composition of the independent jury have not been altered since the departure of Ms Rees from the board.

The message to Ms Rees is simple: You have a democratic right to your views and the right to put them as forcefully as you can, but the Government will not condone these disgraceful attacks by giving you a platform on a commercial board. We gave Ms Rees an opportunity to contribute constructively by placing her on the board in the first place. She chose to abuse this opportunity. Once a person is appointed to a board, they have an obligation to represent the best interests of the board. The best interests of the Kingston Foreshore Development Authority can hardly be served by a board member making outrageous and unsubstantiated attacks on the very public servants who are involved in the redevelopment process. Again, it is fine to make criticisms, but it is not fine if there is no evidence to back them up.

The Labor Party's hypocrisy in this matter must also be exposed. Those opposite would be very well aware that comments have been made by some opposite, such as when Ms Rees was sacked, that it was a very statesmanlike act. Another Labor Party member said to me personally, "The mistake you made was putting her on the board in the first place". Members would also be aware of the war of words between Ms Rees and certain ALP members, conducted last year through the letters page in the Canberra Times, in which Ms Rees accused a Labor Party member of leaping into a "cesspool of personal spite and vindictiveness" and of "peddling a smear campaign". This is the person Labor Party members propose now to support being put back on the board. This is an extraordinary situation. For the ALP to pretend that they are unanimous on this issue makes them a laughing-stock, and you can be assured that we will be seeking a division on this motion so that the vote of each member can be counted. If Mr Whitecross supports this motion, he will mark himself as a craven political opportunist of the most despicable sort, a man willing to sell out his colleagues and their principles.

If this Assembly directs - and they will need to direct - the reinstatement of Ms Rees on the Interim Kingston Foreshore Development Authority, it is sending a message to all public servants in Canberra that they are fair game to any publicity seeker with an axe to grind; they are fair game to unsubstantiated attacks, despite the fact that they do not have free access to the pages of the Canberra Times or the radio and television stations to answer those attacks.

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