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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 238 ..

MR HARGREAVES: The Minister for Finance and Administration, the Hon. Nick Minchin.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: In which case you will still have to withdraw it.

MR HARGREAVES: Actually, I should correct myself. I was not saying that about him; I was talking about Senator the Hon. Robert Hill.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: You will still have to withdraw it.

MR HARGREAVES: Okay, Mr Deputy Speaker, I withdraw it. People can draw their own inferences from reading Hansard.

In a letter dated 19 January to the Chief Minister, the Hon. John Anderson said about the same story—note that I am talking about a month an a half later—that it is an issue for the Minister for Finance and Administration, Senator Minchin, and the Minister for Defence, Senator Hill. He went on to say:

It would therefore not be appropriate for me to express any views on the conventions.

What was he doing in this letter, Mr Deputy Speaker? He went on to express a view on those conventions, saying:

I appreciate the ACT’s desire to support the ability of the Airport to cater effectively for future growth of air travel to Canberra and the region.

That means, on my reading of it, that the ACT government is quite happy to accommodate the needs of future growth of the airport and have a prison on the site, if only an accommodation on the sale can be arrived at. We know that. That has been said in this house before. The letter from Mr Anderson, the Deputy Prime Minister, goes on to say:

I am hopeful that long-term land-use planning strategies can be identified that concurrently protect the operational integrity of the Canberra Airport and meet the ACT Government’s needs.

How about the order of that, Mr Deputy Speaker—to protect the operational integrity of the Canberra airport and at some stage down the track, I guess, meet the ACT government’s needs?

Mr Smyth: He is the minister for transport. He is the minister responsible.

MR HARGREAVES: The Leader of the Opposition says that he is the minister for transport. Who is the minister for correctional services, I ask rhetorically? It certainly is not the Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister went on to say:

I would however be most concerned if the development of a correctional facility, or other land-use, in a sensitive location to aircraft noise compromised the potential of Canberra Airport. Any land-use…should include as a fundamental consideration the

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