Page 3048 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 23 August 2005
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MRS DUNNE: I ask a supplementary question. If the Emergency Services Authority presents a terrorist risk, what risk assessment has been done for the neighbouring residents and for the Queen Elizabeth II home for mothers and babies?
MR HARGREAVES: Mrs Dunne assumes that the only terrorist threat is going to be a massive great big bomb dropped in the letterbox of the ESA. That is not so at all. Mrs Dunne would not know, because she has not had the same briefings that Mr Pratt has had—and it is inappropriate that they be used in this place—that the level of—
Mr Smyth interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: Do give it a rest, little man.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Cease your interjections, Mr Smyth.
MR HARGREAVES: In a funny kind of sense, I am a bit grateful to Mrs Dunne for plagiarising a question from Dr Foskey. I think she should be congratulated for that. I have said before that there are certain elements of critical infrastructure in this town that could be the target for terrorist attention. One of them we saw recently—the white powder incident. That was not blowing up houses next door. Nonetheless, when it happened, the emergency coordination centre was set up. There was a flurry of activity around the place. Naturally there was supposed to be a security ring around it, and that security ring was compromised by the presence of a childcare centre next door.
When we had the tsunami response, what happened? That emergency coordination centre was set up. All of the agencies came together. The integrity of that particular coordination centre was compromised by the presence of a childcare centre. There is no threat, necessarily, in my view. But I am not an expert on this sort of stuff. Other people are. My advice is that this is a low-level security target. It is not like Mrs Dunne’s house, which is a no-threat security target.
Nonetheless, as I have said, through you, to Dr Foskey, it is my responsibility as urban services minister to protect the integrity of the security of the emergency coordination centre and the communications centre, and I will do so. If it makes the opposition unhappy, well, tough!
Mrs Dunne: It’s about the people.
MR HARGREAVES: No, it is making you lot unhappy.
Planning authority
MR SESELJA: My question is to the Minister for Planning. Minister, I refer you to the recent Power decision of the AAT in which it said that ACTPLA’s officers:
… have still not developed a good understanding of the legislation which they administer. Continuing to do so is likely to mislead those who rely upon the expertise of the respondent—
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