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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2707 ..

MR CORBELL: Mr Humphries may not be aware of it-he is not on the committee-but Mr Hird and Mr Rugendyke know there is an agreement in our committee that in relation to any controversial draft variation you call for public comment. They know that. Perhaps that is the reason why Mr Hird has left the chamber, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr Smyth: Ah, a cheap shot. Cheap like you.

MR CORBELL: The only people being cheap in this debate are the government opposite, because they are afraid of having the issues properly aired.

I would have had no difficulty if a majority of the committee had resolved to present a report after having called for public submissions and looked at what those submissions said. If, as a result of calling for public submissions, it became clear that there were no new issues being raised, no new points of concern being raised, or points of concern being raised by members of the community who have not previously commented on this matter, then I would have been prepared to accept that there would be no need for public hearings and to move to a report. The problem is that the committee did not even do that. It is a disgraceful abrogation of those members' responsibilities, and I will have nothing to do with it.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the committee did not even give the dissenting member adequate time to prepare a dissenting report. That is quite unacceptable.

Mr Humphries: It's like the Estimates Committee.

MR CORBELL: I am glad the Chief Minister has interjected. Unlike the Estimates Committee, this committee has no set reporting date. The Estimates Committee, as we all know, had to report by a certain time. It had no choice. It had no discretion in the matter. It had to report by a certain date. This committee can report out of session. This committee can choose to report whenever it likes on this draft variation, as the Chief Minister well knows. So whether or not the committee had to report today was not the point; it should not have been a matter of contention. The committee could have reported out of session on Monday in order to give a dissenting member the opportunity to present a dissenting report; but no, they did not even extend that courtesy.

Let me move to the substance of this disgraceful report, if there is any, Mr Deputy Speaker. The bulk of the report is simply an extraction of words previously used in another report on the referral to the committee by this place in relation to a range of matters on the proposals for the Gungahlin Drive extension. There are a number of other comments, one page of new material, in this report. At paragraph 11 the report says:

... the committee (Mr Corbell dissenting) considers that a further round of public hearings on the GDE is not required.

It is interesting that the report does not say that it did not consider public submissions were not required. Is this an omission, in some Freudian way, that perhaps they felt that public submissions should have been heard? The committee cannot even get its facts straight. The committee did not resolve not to conduct public hearings; the committee resolved not to call public submissions. So even in the preparation of this document it is inaccurate.

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