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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1777 ..

Mr Moore: Mr Speaker, I am going to take a point of order. I apologise for doing this, but it is important to take a point of order here. Considering the seriousness of this matter and the absence of people on the crossbenches, I am calling for a quorum because there is going to be a judgment made and it is important that these people be here. Mr Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house. (Quorum formed.)

MR CORBELL: I will recapitulate. This is a motion which I do not move lightly. It is a motion I move because my colleagues and I are gravely concerned that the Minister for Urban Services and his officers appear to have behaved in a way which may have resulted in a breach of parliamentary privilege. I stress the word "may", Mr Speaker, because it is a matter which can only be properly considered by a select committee on privileges. That is why we propose such a committee's establishment.

In considering this motion members must keep in mind that we are not, I stress not, voting on whether Mr Smyth or his staff did anything wrong. That is for the select committee to decide. In considering this motion I am asking members to have the serious allegations made by Mr Gower properly investigated.

Mr Speaker, the matter I am concerned about is the evidence given by Mr David Gower at the public hearing of the Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services on 5 May this year. At this public hearing Mr Gower claimed that the Minister for Urban Services, along with officers of his department and his personal office, pressured the Gungahlin Community Council, of which Mr Gower is president, into changing its position on the issue of the route for the Gungahlin Drive extension. The minister did this, Mr Gower has claimed, by telling Mr Gower that, and I quote from the transcript:

Not may not get a road, Mr Speaker, not possibly will not get a road, but will not get a road. When questioned on this claim by me, Mr Gower was asked if he was suggesting that the minister himself had given the indication that the road would not be built if the eastern alignment was not successful. Mr Gower replied that he was "not just suggesting it ... he did". I repeat that. Mr Gower said the minister was not just suggesting it, he did.

Mr Speaker, what we have here is a clear and direct statement from a witness before an Assembly committee alleging that he and the organisation he represents were pressured into changing its view and therefore the evidence he was to give on its behalf to a committee of this place. The change he alleges occurred from pressure placed on him by the minister. That is the heart of the matter, Mr Speaker, and that is why a select committee should investigate it.

The clear and explicit point made by Mr Gower in his evidence is that the threat was support the government's alignment or there will be no Gungahlin Drive extension built at all, and this is an outcome which, clearly, no community group representing the Gungahlin community would want to see. It would appear, based on Mr Gower's evidence, to be a threat made to improperly influence the Gungahlin Community Council to change the evidence it would give before an Assembly inquiry. If that is found to be the case following an investigation by a select committee on privileges, then it would be a breach of privilege.

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