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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2409 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

I understand that tomorrow there will be some sort of event at which the chair of the Multicultural Council will make some announcement about Mr Mico's future, so the government has gone round in a circle here to try to recover from the mess that it made.

Mr Stanhope: A backflip.

MR WOOD: I do not know whether a backflip is a circle, but it may be much the same thing. Being rather sceptical, I do not think Mr Mico will be offered a full return to where he was, which would be unfortunate. The government, in essence, has said that it was wrong in of all this. The government has not quite said it that way; it has not put its hand to its breast and said, "Sorry, we were wrong," but the government has taken steps to try to recover from the mess that it made of the whole affair. Of course, in all of this, Mr Mico has been the one to suffer; not only Mr Mico but also the program of festivals, which will probably take some time to recover from the damage inflicted on it by this government.

Lyneham tennis centre

MR CORBELL (10.01): Earlier in question time today the Minister for Urban Services, Mr Smyth, attempted in a rather desultory but nevertheless typically pedantic way to suggest that there was some sort of disagreement within the Labor Party over the approval of development of the Lyneham tennis centre. For the record, I want to state clearly again the Labor Party's position in relation to this development. In fact, I would like to refer to elements of a press statement which I released on 31 May this year in relation to Lyneham. It is headed "Labor supports proper planning processes and private sector investment". I will read briefly from that statement, Mr Speaker. It reads:

"Labor encourages proper planning processes and private sector investment in the ACT", Labor's Shadow Minister for Planning, Simon Corbell, said (today) ...

Labor is on the record supporting major private sector investment projects in Canberra, including:

The Kingston Foreshore Development and

Section 56 Development in Civic ...

"These two developments alone are worth 100's of millions of dollars to the city and thousands of jobs" ...

I come to the important bit, Mr Speaker. I went on to say in the press statement:

Labor has also welcomed the investment in the Lyneham Tennis Centre but Labor is not willing to sanction the abuse of a ministerial veto power ...

The Humphries Government has devalued the call-in power through its frequent use to overrule proper planning processes.

Developments like Lyneham should proceed by a fair and transparent process, and should not occur as a result of overriding the community's right to participate in the approvals process.

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