Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1899 ..

MS TUCKER (11.00): Just very briefly because I realise I was interjecting: I apologise; I do not usually do that.

MR SPEAKER: Thank you so much.

MS TUCKER: I really did find that I was provoked by Mr Corbell. The fact that he would dare stand in this place and suggest that a disallowance was the same protection as an AAT hearing, that he can somehow try to argue in this place that because something is disallowable we do not have a problem in terms of scrutiny and checks and basic rights of people in the ACT, just had to be commented on.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (11.00): Mr Speaker, I was watching upstairs and was quite amazed to see Mr Corbell rise to his hind legs, and there he was saying, “I would not blame the Liberals for slowing down the GDE.” I just closed my eyes—deja vu; here we go. This project was meant to start on 1 July 2002. I can recall this because I was the minister who put it in there in our five-year road program, and it was delayed. Mr Corbell dragged this process as slowly as he could; he retarded its progress through the former Planning and Environment Committee because it suited his political purposes. That is all it was.

I can remember him standing somewhere just about here and attacking Mr Rugendyke and Mr Hird when they said they would not go out for another round of public consultation so that Simon Corbell could slow it down one more time. I see he has abandoned the chamber; he has raced up there; he is tap, tap, tapping away at his computer, no doubt putting out the press release saying “Liberals block GDE”.

Well, in the morning I will give Mr Corbell the chance he wants to progress the GDE immediately. We will seek leave in the morning to bring on our bill entitled Projects of Territorial Significance Bill, which is a better piece of legislation. Do not take my word for it; Mr Wood said so. Mr Wood said, “This is better than ours because (1) it is finished and (2) we were not thinking that way.”

This is the government of bandaids and patch jobs; they are coming at this from behind because they do not know what to do, they have slowed it down for more than two years. They have not thought about an adequate solution; they are patching piece after piece after piece of legislation because they do not have coherence; they cannot put this stuff together. Then, when somebody has the temerity to say, “Well, we’ve got a better way than the government, what about this?” they say, “How dare you? We’re the government, you, you, you cannot do that to us.” Well, we will.

In the morning we will seek leave to bring on immediately our bill entitled Projects of Territorial Significance Bill, a bill which was circulated as a courtesy, unlike most of the government amendments, what—a week ago, ten days ago?

Mrs Burke: Two weeks; final last week.

MR SMYTH: Two weeks.

Mrs Dunne: Two weeks ago.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .