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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2292 ..

MR WOOD: It is certainly a frustration that there is a continuing delay of roadworks through legal processes, with—for me at least—surprising outcomes in the courts. That is a continuing frustration. The government’s actions previously, challenged yesterday, have been based on longstanding processes that have been absolutely accepted over a long period of time.

Nevertheless, we accept the rulings in the court—not the decision of the court so much—as a temporary injunction, and we will seek to work through it. This morning I signed new authorisations, which specifically exclude what is now a 900-metre strip of land in Canberra Nature Park that is the subject of the latest legal challenge. My authorisations will allow preliminary work to take place on the other eight-ninths of the route, and this should allow work to resume almost immediately.

A short time ago, government lawyers went back to the court to inform the court of our new authorisations and give an assurance that the government will comply with the terms of the injunction.

MS MacDONALD: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Minister, can you inform the Assembly if the demonstrations are endangering lives?

Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I seek your ruling on whether the supplementary question relates directly to the original question. The original question was about the GDE and the court injunctions; the supplementary seems to be about protestors.

Mr Wood: It’s about work on Gungahlin drive.

MS MacDONALD: Mr Speaker, I was asking if the demonstrations against the Gungahlin Drive extension are endangering lives.

Mr Cornwell: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That is asking for an expression of opinion.

Mr Wood: No, it’s not—clearly not.

Mr Hargreaves: It’s a fact.

MR SPEAKER: No, I think it is asking for a statement of fact in relation to a matter. The question was in relation to the injunctions earlier, and the injunctions were not related to protesters. So the point that Mrs Dunne has raised is correct.

Mr Wood: If the Assembly does not want to hear these things, so be it.

Water—use in toilets

MS TUCKER: My question is to Jon Stanhope as Chief Minister and Minister for Environment and it regards water use. Minister, as you may be aware, single flush toilets are extremely wasteful and, according to the master plumbers, converting single flush toilets to three and six-litre dual flush toilets can save around 11,000 litres per annum per person, based on five flushes a day. You may not be aware that there are single flush

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