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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 232 ..

small. On top of that, the people running those meetings rang some of the members in this place and asked them not to go to the meeting because they were not invited—yes, Mr Deputy Speaker, this did occur as I was one of the members who received a call. That is not the reason I did not go to the meeting. I sent one of my advisers as I had other electoral work.

I found it rather presumptuous and arrogant of the person that called my office to ask why I was attending that meeting when I had not been invited to speak. Quite simply, it was a public meeting and I did not have to get permission to go. I was going because for more than a month before that meeting my office had been working with the residents of Fadden and Macarthur on this very issue. Unfortunately, another member who was told not to go did not do so because she was worried. For people who are running community council meetings to have another agenda other than what is good for the community causes me great concern.

I go back to my concern about the process and the perceived interference with the process—whether it be the perception that instructions had been given to people in Canberra Connect to give the Karralika problem low priority or whether it be the architects involved whom the Karralika people were told to go through to get information on the design. Frankly, they weren’t really interested as much in the design as the fact that the whole thing had been steamrolled through in an 11th hour approach when, as Mr Smyth said earlier, the DA had been lodged in September and there was more than three months for this minister before Christmas and New Year to have given enough time for the residents to understand what the minister and his departments—Health and planning—were trying to do.

Where is the conflict of interest here? It is evident. I am wondering how the Minister for Planning consults with the Minister for Health. Do they ring each other and say, “Hi, it’s me. I’m ringing you on a planning issue,” “Look I’m busy with health, can I get back to you later?” How does it work? How do you deal with this obvious conflict of interest? This election year, over 1,300 residents have signed this petition. They are not just from the Brindabella electorate but from every electorate in the ACT. I have never seen anything that has been so broad as this lobby group. This is the most impressive lay people’s lobby group I have seen on an issue in a very long time. They are not idiots and they are certainly not hysterical nimbys. I asked a supplementary question of the minister on this issue. I asked whether the minister was ready to admit that he incorrectly used regulation 12. The most insulting thing that the minister said when referring to these people was, “I do not believe that the changed process is an admission on my part that the regulation has been exercised incorrectly. I work with my Labor colleagues in Brindabella to find a sensible and rational rather than an hysterical way forward.”

Isn’t that a wonderful way for a minister, or any member of this place, to refer to constituents that dare to question the planning process? That is not the way you win elections, that is not the way you satisfy your voters and it is certainly not the way to work with a process. It works against it and shows great contempt for the processes of this Assembly.

At 5.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.

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