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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3283 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

today, that the documents were so woefully and obviously inadequate that the cabinet could not reasonably have tried to make a decision on the basis of them. He did not say that. I know you would like to make the interpretation that that is what he said, but he didn't say that. In the circumstances, Mr Speaker, cabinet did make a decision and there was an appropriate decision to make.

I am sure that Mr Kaine, who was the Assistant Treasurer at the time, would also attest to the fact that the process did not always at that stage involve reference to advice either from me as Attorney-General or from the department unless it was considered that there was some need for such advice. If it was considered that there was a need for such advice it would normally come from my department rather than from me personally, sitting around the cabinet table.

MR HIRD: My question is to the Minister for Urban Services, Mr Smyth. I refer to a recent letterbox drop conducted by the Labor Party in which a leaflet entitled "The Government's Secret Plans for your Suburb" was placed in people's mail boxes. Indeed, yesterday Mr Corbell was pictured in the Canberra Times at a Save Open Spaces rally at the Curtin horse paddocks calling on the government to save open spaces. Minister, are the claims true that the government has a secret sell-off plan and that the Curtin horse paddocks are open space to be sold off?

MR SMYTH: I thank Mr Hird for the question, which was a good question.

Mr Stanhope: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understood that the Chief Minister had taken all responsibility for infill matters and the John Dedman Parkway and that Mr Smyth was not to be trusted to handle any of those issues any further. Perhaps the question should have gone to the Chief Minister.

MR SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. The question was asked of Mr Smyth and Mr Smyth is going to answer it.

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, I can understand Mr Stanhope's embarrassment. We all remember Mr Stanhope's opening remarks as Leader of the Opposition when he said, "We are not going to be like the old Labor government. We are going to be new and fresh. We are going to be out there." I would be embarrassed, too, Mr Stanhope.

Mr Speaker, I think that we all agree that we live in a truly beautiful city and that we are lucky and grateful for that. Where else in the world can you walk out your back door and encounter the environment that you can in Canberra of tree-studded parcels of land protected from development within five minutes of the centre of the city? You cannot do that in Sydney; you can do it in Canberra.

For the record, 82 per cent of the land in the ACT is not zoned for development for residential, commercial or community purposes.

Mr Corbell: Most of it is in national parks.

MR SMYTH: That is almost 200,000 hectares.

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