Page 306 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 December 2004

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It has been reported to me that at the very first meeting after 18 November, when Mr Coonan and Mr Tully and their representatives came together to meet with officials from ACTPLA, they all sat down and started negotiations and one of the officials—I am paraphrasing here—said: “I don’t want to be here. I don’t think I should be here, and I don’t particularly care what any minister or any Legislative Assembly says; this is not the way we are going to do it.”

That is a searing indictment of the administration of this minister. This minister has no control over the areas of government for which he has responsibility. The people whom I have advocated for in this matter have tried to do everything they possibly can to take the heat out of the debate. They thought there might have been a personality clash between them and the officials because there is some history there, so they said: “We will withdraw from the debate and we will appoint an advocate to advocate on our behalf. We won’t go to the meetings; we will send our advocate.” But that has not improved the situation at all. There has been this obfuscation to the extent that, when Mr Higginson wrote to the chief planning executive and said, “I would like to move forward on this debate, on this discussion,” the response came back: “You obviously don’t want to negotiate any more. That’s the end of it.”

What is being proposed today, because the minister is no longer constrained by this Assembly, will be a travesty. It will be a complete turning away from an obligation that he undertook. If he persists with his amendment to my motion, he will be telling me, every member of this place, the Coonan, Tully and Tanner families and their representatives, and every person in the ACT, that Simon Corbell, Minister for Planning, is a man whose word cannot be trusted.

Question put:

That Mr Corbell’s motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 8

Noes 7

Mr Berry

Mr Hargreaves

Mrs Burke

Mr Seselja

Mr Corbell

Ms MacDonald

Mrs Dunne

Mr Smyth

Ms Gallagher

Ms Porter

Dr Foskey

Mr Stefaniak

Mr Gentleman

Mr Stanhope

Mr Mulcahy

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Question put:

That Mrs Dunne’s motion, as amended, be agreed to

The Assembly voted—

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