Page 762 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2005

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are talking about the security of our drinking water, we should be doubly cautious. It was the height of irresponsibility for the Minister for Health to come in here yesterday and say, “Don’t you worry; trust Simon Corbell; it is all right.”

Mr Corbell: Mr Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order concerning relevance. I do not think we are discussing water supply issues in the context of this motion.

MR SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne—who will make sure she is relevant.

MRS DUNNE: I will make sure that I am relevant. Talking about one of the water catchments from which we extract our drinking water, nothing could be more relevant to the argument. This motion seeks to put the documents on the table for the people of the ACT to digest, not to have the matter delivered through the cipher of Shaping our territory, a press release from the Chief Minster or an answer to a dorothy dixer from the Minister for Health, but to put the documents on the table—the minutes and dissenting comments—so that people can observe them, so that the people of the ACT and the ACT Legislative Assembly can make a proper study of whether this is the right way forward. This is why the Assembly cannot support this pathetic amendment from the Chief Minister and Minister for the Environment.

Question put:

That Mr Stanhope’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.43), in reply: Mr Speaker, the motion now reads, “That this Assembly commends the government for its catchment restoration work.” The Liberal opposition will be voting against this motion. Again, we have the arrogance of the Chief Minister and a government who think that, “Because nine beats eight every time in this place, we can do exactly what we want. We can do in the Cotter catchment exactly what we want, despite the advice of eminent scientists. We can do exactly what we want in response to the bushfire recovery, despite what people said, just because we can.”

This is yet another example of this government, as I said before, lording it over the people of the ACT rather than governing on their behalf. What we have seen today is the classic Stanhope government arrogance. We have had: “shoot the messenger”; “how dare the Canberra Times criticise us”; and “how dare eminent scientists criticise us?” We have had Mr Hargreaves thinking that there is something funny going on because members of the opposition can use the forms of the house to (a) ask a question and (b)

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