Page 2730 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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If I recall correctly … I think Mr Seselja’s question yesterday was: was I aware of any correspondence raising concerns or criticisms of the process. The answer to that question was no. That remains my position.
The answer was not “no”. The answer was, in effect, “I will take it on notice.” He still has not come back to us and answered that question. I do not know whether the second answer was the answer or whether the first one was. It was clearly designed to not answer the question over two days. In a media interview on 22 August the minister said that nobody had a pre-application meeting, when referring to Austexx’s meeting with ACTPLA. Yet an ACTPLA document of 4 October is clearly marked at the top of the page as being a pre-application meeting. The minister has made a statement that runs completely contrary to the evidence at hand. The minister in the same media interview said:
They, I am clear, were quite rightly referred back to the Land Development Agency because the lease and development conditions had not yet been revealed.
At least one bidder had contacted ACTPLA and was having meetings. The pre-application meeting documents clearly show that Austexx and ACTPLA were meeting to discuss the territory plan while ING was being referred to the LDA. Clearly, the timing was not the reason they were referred; it was some other reason.
The answer that the minister gave was not correct. While Mr Corbell throws out allegations of misleading by me, he is not able to back that up with any evidence. We have numerous examples in both the media and in the Assembly of the minister giving answers which provide discrepancies. It is incumbent upon the minister to come back as soon as possible and correct the record on all of these issues that I have raised.
The EpiCentre issue is an important one and is important to this budget because the fundamental question goes to whether or not the people of the ACT got maximum value for money through this process. The process needed to be a good one and needed to be a clear one for us to get maximum value. It is clear, from all the correspondence, from all the documents that we have, that it was not clear and that it was not a process that was conducted in the best possible way, which would have sought maximum value.
The fundamental question which the minister has not yet answered is: why did not the LDA focus, in all of their advertising, on the fact that you could have lots of small retail, up to 3,000 square metres? The minister responds, “It was clear in the territory plan.” We know it was not clear, because all the bidders were so confused that they had to keep asking. Regardless of that, why would not the LDA, in selling this site, make it clear that you could have lots of small retail, up to 3,000 square metres? We know from the documents that they knew—certainly by September, their interpretation was clear—that you could have lots of small retail, up to 3,000 square metres.
The question is: why would they not make that clear? Why would they not shout that from the rooftops prior to the auction and say, “You can do all sorts of things on this site. It is not just bulky goods. You can also do lots and lots of small retail, up to 3,000 square metres per sublease, and you can do as much as you want on that site according to the new interpretation of ACTPLA”? Why would you not be making that as clear as possible and publicly state it?
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