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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 231 ..

residents. That was not correct. Only nine residents have confirmed that they received a letter, with one person away and unable to confirm it. That is just one more inaccurate claim propagated by the Planning Minister. Further, false assertions or at least contradictions by the minister and his department were evidenced in these letters. In the original letter from ACT Health, it was stated that “six of the 12 eucalypts” would be removed. That does not quite match up with the tree assessment plan, which states that 55 of the 66 trees on the Karralika site would be removed. When confronted with this anomaly, the minister said in his meeting with the residents, “It depends on your definition of trees.”

Mr Corbell: I answered that yesterday, Mrs Cross, and you know that.

MRS CROSS: Yes. You were wrong, Minister. The answer was less than accurate. You disparaged residents for having deliberately misrepresented you on their website. That is what you said. Your answer was:

I refer to the member’s reference to the words ‘trees’ and ‘consultation’. Following my meeting with the Karralika Action Group, I saw the release and read the comments of that group in relation to this issue. Unfortunately, my comments were grossly misreported and misrepresented.

This is the point that I wanted to make. The tree count on the site will vary, depending on what is classified as a tree. Members would be aware that the tree protection legislation defines what is a tree and what trees require approval before they can be removed.

(Extension of time granted.) “That is the point that I made at the meeting I had with the action group,” the minister said. The interesting thing is that the recollection of the action group, which took verbatim notes of what the minister said, was that the discussion was never about the approval of a tree removal, but about a highly misleading letter announcing, as I said earlier, that six of the 12 eucalypts would be removed.

Mr Corbell: I suppose you were at the meeting, were you, Mrs Cross?

MRS CROSS: Are you calling the residents liars, Minister?

Mr Corbell: I didn’t say that.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! It is a rhetorical question.

Mr Hargreaves: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: could I have withdrawal of the word “liars”, please—even in a question.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: It was a rhetorical question.

MRS CROSS: Mr Deputy Speaker, I withdraw. The greatest error that any political party can make is to be out of touch with its electorate to such an extent that a petition with over 1,250 signatures has been generated in less than 10 days. There are three groupings of signatures. Further signatures will be tabled in the morning, bringing the total number of signatures to almost 1,400. A community meeting was held with many hundreds of people attending. Others had to be turned away because the venue was too

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