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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3080 ..

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (10.20): Mr Corbell berates the government about courtesy. He says, "You brought this bill in and you want to race it through. You do not show anybody any courtesy." Let us look at Labor's record on courtesy. Labor considers that dropping nine pages of amendments on the table 15 or 20 minutes before the debate on the Crimes (Forensic Procedures) Bill is courtesy. But here is the rub. When were they printed? They were printed yesterday morning. That is courtesy Labor Party style. It is okay for them to do this but we cannot. That is the attitude Mr Corbell shows every time he speaks in this place. It is deplorable.

Mr Corbell says, "There has not been time for me in the last four months to develop a planning policy for the Labor Party. There has not been time for me to get to the PCO to get my amendments ready. There has not been time to ring the minister. I now make the minister a kind offer. I will ring him one day and we will talk about planning. But there has not been time in the last four months." Amazing! Mr Corbell has been missing in action on the planning debate.

Mr Corbell: You have to be joking. It took you four months to draft two pages. What a joke! You are an absolute joke, Brendan Smyth.

MR SMYTH: Simon Corbell says he has been talking to the community. There have been an awful lot of public forums in the last four months.

Mr Corbell: It took you four months to draft two pages. What an absolute joke you are!

Mr Stefaniak: I take a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I cannot hear the minister. Shut him up, will you?

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, order!

Mr Corbell: Is the minister seriously claiming it took him four months to draft two pages? What a nonsense!

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Smyth has the floor. Mr Corbell, you have had your say.

MR SMYTH: Mr Deputy Speaker, the level of interjection and the low quality of rhetoric are directly proportionate to the level of the embarrassment. I would be embarrassed too if I had made the statements Mr Corbell has made. He said that there had not been time. He said, "The nonsense is that you have not done any work." The nonsense is that you have not done any work. Mr Corbell says that the planning minister is a joke in the community. He has not been at any of the community consultation I have been to recently. At well-advertised public forums we have had spirited argument about where we should take the planning of this city.

Where was Simon Corbell? He was missing in action. He was off tinkering at the side, complacent and smug in the thought that he had 100 per cent coming at last. But when he is stung into activity because our policies look like being fulfilled, he suddenly comes up with this notion that he is going to come back to us shortly with amendments. If it is so important, why have we waited and why are the amendments not ready now? You have been stung into activity. Simon Corbell, potential planning minister, has been missing in action.

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