Page 2145 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 August 2006
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MR STANHOPE: I have, but I was interested in your ruling, Mr Speaker, on what a member, not wishing to be unruly, might say or do on an occasion when the member is being misrepresented in a question. Yes, under standing order 46, I claim to have been misrepresented. Mr Smyth claimed in a question to the minister for education that I had said that school sites would be sold. I have said no such thing and any—
Mrs Dunne: You said it on 2CN.
MR STANHOPE: Get the transcript and have a look. I did not say that school sites would be sold. I said that one possible outcome of the scenario would be that land might be sold. The land, if a school is closed, reverts to the Department of the Territory and Municipal Services under an administrative arrangements order. The process that we would then put in place, or the Department of the Territory and Municipal Services, would be to commission ACTPLA to undertake a planning study that would look at a whole range of issues in terms of appropriate planning outcomes consistent with the territory plan and potential future uses and then decisions would be made. That is what I said. And then I said, in a hypothetical way, one such outcome of such a planning study might be that the land would be sold for uses such as aged care accommodation, supported accommodation or affordable housing—that is what I said—consequent on a whole range of steps, namely, the school closing in the first place, and those decisions have not been made.
I was at pains to say that if schools close, if the land becomes available, if the Department of the Territory and Municipal Services then commissions a planning study, which would be our process, and, if the planning study reveals that an appropriate use would be aged care accommodation, yes, of course the land would then be sold. But I was at pains to indicate that at this stage the government had made no decisions. Any suggestion in the context of the one that Mr Smyth has made today—a blunt statement that I have said school land will be sold—is simply false, and it is not an uncommon practice of members to ask ministers questions based on a false premise.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella): Under standing order 46, I would like to make a personal explanation.
MR SPEAKER: Have you been misrepresented?
MR SMYTH: I have, Mr Speaker. During question time, the Chief Minister said that the transfer of the Narrabundah caravan park to Koomarri was the result of poor planning and that the sale was therefore the result of this poor planning. That is incorrect. The sale occurred because in November last year Koomarri rang the Chief Minister’s office and asked whether it was okay for them to honour the terms of their lease and sell the land and were given the go-ahead by the Chief Minister through his office.
They then rang my office and asked the same and I said that, if they have complied with the terms and conditions of their lease, then it was up to them to do what they want with their property. The sale of the Narrabundah caravan park occurred because both the Chief Minister’s office and my office—I through my office and I assume he through his office—agreed to its going ahead.
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