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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2403 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

He is not fit to remain a Minister for Land and Planning in the ACT. We should not allow him to remain in that position, because six months down the road, three months down the road, we will see him come into this place and put in place an alternative system of land management. He will come in and do that, despite the fact that he undertook in the Assembly not to do so. He undertook not in the life of this Assembly to put in place changes to the system of land tenure in the ACT. That is what he has done.

Mrs Carnell: He has not.

MR CORBELL: He has sought to put in place those changes. Your Government has written to the Federal Government seeking to put in place those changes.

There is one final thing, Mr Speaker, I would like to raise. This motion of no confidence and this letter from the Chief Minister to the Minister for Territories raise some very serious questions. What sort of effect will the Commonwealth's enabling legislation have? What will it do? We do not know whether or not it can be made just by regulation. We do not know whether it can be made just on the whim of the Executive. We have no indication that it has to come to the Assembly.

Mrs Carnell: It says it right here in Warwick Smith's letter.

Mrs Littlewood: You do. It is there in writing, in black and white, on paper.

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister and everyone over there can rant and rave as much as they like; but what it comes down to is that this Government sought from the Federal Government the putting in place of changes that would allow the introduction of 999-year leases in the ACT, despite the fact that this Government and this Minister made a commitment not to do so. That is why we believe he has no confidence from this Assembly, and that is why we believe that the Independents and the Greens in this place must put their money where their mouths are on this issue and vote no confidence. Vote for something that will have an impact, that will send a message. We know that censure motions will not; Ms Horodny has already told us that. Vote for the no-confidence motion. It is the only way that you will send the signal that you so desperately want to.

MR KAINE (Minister for Urban Services) (3.34): Mr Speaker, I have been through some funny debates in this place in my time here, but this is one of the best so far. What the Opposition has done is the old, old ploy. First you set up the straw man and then you knock it down. There is no substance to the straw man, Mr Speaker. I am afraid even the Greens have fallen for it. They have accepted that there is some substance to the Labor Party's position. Then they say, "We will not go for a motion of no confidence, but we do think it is worth a censure". The problem is that the basis of the argument put forward by the Labor Party is false. There is no basis.

The Labor Party's motion says that this Assembly has lost confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning as a result of "his management of the potential". Can somebody explain to me how you can manage potential? For a Minister or anybody else to be able to manage something there has to be a project, a proposal, a discussion paper or a piece of legislation. There has to be something tangible for him to manage.

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