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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3136 ..

MR WOOD: In your question today and other days you’re trying to put words into people’s mouths. Mr Speaker, I was well aware, from my attendance at those briefings, of the issues around that fire.

Naas Valley dam proposal

MS MacDONALD: My question is to the Chief Minister. On Tuesday, during debate on a matter of public importance, the Leader of the Opposition reiterated the Liberals’ commitment to the construction of a dam in the Naas Valley. Chief Minister, can you tell the Assembly what form of consideration would properly inform such a significant policy decision?

Mrs Dunne: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr Quinlan: You don’t want to hear this one.

Mrs Dunne: I can give the answer now. Mr Speaker, I ask you to rule on whether the question is in order, because it is almost exactly the same as the question that Mr Hargreaves asked on, I think, Tuesday.

MR SPEAKER: I cannot compare it with Mr Hargreaves’s question. I think that Ms MacDonald’s question is in order.

Mrs Dunne: On a separate point of order, Mr Speaker: I think that Ms MacDonald said—I am open to correction—that we talked about the dam this morning. In fact, the Liberal opposition did not mention the dam this morning.

MR SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

MR STANHOPE: Yes, there was a discussion about the Liberal Party’s position or the opposition’s position in relation to the construction of a dam in the Naas Valley. We know that this is a one-site-fits-all response to issues in relation to our long-term water resource needs. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition did wax lyrical in a debate the other day about the Liberal Party’s approach to this issue. It was a very interesting speech—a speech that wandered all over the place, a speech full of flim-flam. He talked about Kentucky bluegrass, native grass, what we need to do in our gardens and what Canberra was like 30 years ago. As we know, the Liberal Party has committed essentially to a plan to build in the Naas Valley on the basis of, I think, engineering work that was done 30 years ago.

Mr Smyth: Not essentially. We do commit to a plan.

MR STANHOPE: Mr Smyth, the Leader of the Opposition, interjects that they have not committed essentially to it; they have done it. Mrs Dunne backs him up on that. In the debate in relation to the matter of public importance, Mr Smyth said that they have committed to it on the basis that it probably would be the best result.

That is interesting. It is interesting that we are actually seeing the rigour that the Liberal Party brings to major infrastructure development, the rigour that the Liberal Party brings

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