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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2405 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I cannot support either the motion or the amendment. I think they are both lacking in substance. No evidence has been presented. Perhaps Ms Horodny will bring forward some more substantive evidence than the Labor Party has done, to support her case; but I doubt it. What we are doing, as we do so often in this place, is debating a motion put forward by the Labor Party which has no substance at all but from which they hope, by some subterfuge or other, to get some credibility. Well, they are not going to get any credibility out of this issue, Mr Speaker.

MS TUCKER (3.39): I will just speak to the amendment, briefly. I would like to respond to Mr Corbell, who said that in my statements on a previous occasion I had said that a motion of no confidence was appropriate if the system was actually failing. I was not in the chamber, but I think he was saying that I had said that that was appropriate; that it did not have to be technically misleading or something like that. What I would have to say in response to that is that, indeed, there is a problem with the system of planning in the ACT, but it is not just to do with the Liberal or Government side. It has to do with Labor.

If we are going to do a no confidence in the system because the system is not working, it is no confidence in this Assembly where you get two parties, Labor and Liberal, voting together against the crossbench trying to get some accountability into planning processes in this town. What Mr Corbell is tempting us to do is to move some kind of general censure or lack of confidence in both sides of the house, which I do not think is appropriate anyway. I did want to make that quite clear. Obviously, with the amendment that we have put, we are acknowledging that we are not happy with the process as it has occurred. However, we do not think a no-confidence motion is appropriate at this point. We are asking that there be a letter written to retract what has been asked for already, and I think that is a quite reasonable solution.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training) (3.41): Mr Speaker, I have not been in this Assembly for as long as Mr Kaine; but, like him, I am absolutely amazed at this motion. It would certainly have to be the strangest one I have ever seen, because the - - -

Mr Berry: You have not weathered as well, though.

MR STEFANIAK: Shut up, Wayne. It basically calls on this Assembly to sack a Minister for his management of something he has not done, "the potential extension of tenure of leases" - potential; something that has not happened; something that they say might happen; something that the Minister has actually said he is not going to do in the term of this Assembly, and he said that again today. That is absolutely unbelievable.

Mr Corbell, I suggest that you look at the letter from the Hon. Warwick Smith, the Federal Minister. I suggest that you have a look at paragraphs 2 and 4. Warwick Smith says:

I can confirm it is the Commonwealth's intention to legislate as stated in our 1996 Election Policy.

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