Page 284 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR SPEAKER: Would you repeat the question, Dr Foskey?
DR FOSKEY: Given ACT Labor’s commitment to abolish the practice of battery cage egg production in the ACT and subsequent to the need for cage egg producers in the ACT to change to new battery hen cages by 1 January 2008 by enlarging them to the size of an A4 sheet of paper in line with the August 2000 decision of the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand, will the government move to start to implement a ban of ACT cage production facilities prior to 1 January 2008?
MR SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. I call Mr Hargreaves.
MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I thank Dr Foskey for the question. I confess, Dr Foskey, that I do not carry that information around in my head. It is a very complicated and complex question requiring a very complicated and complex answer. I will go away and find one and bring it back for you.
DR FOSKEY: I would appreciate that. I would also appreciate, as a supplementary question, the minister advising the Assembly of the cost to government of implementing a ban after 1 January 2008 once the slightly larger cages have been installed, and will he undertake to have his department make that cost comparison if it has not already been done?
MR HARGREAVES: I will endeavour to seek advice as to whether that cost comparison has been done. If it has been done I will give some thought to whether I can provide it or whether I cannot. Then I will come back to the Assembly with that answer.
Emergency Services Agency—headquarters
MR PRATT: My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services, Mr Corbell. Yesterday, during the press conference on the latest restructuring of the ESA—probably not the last, by the way—the commissioner said that he “hoped” that all emergency agencies would be relocated from Curtin to the new headquarters complex at Fairbairn by June 2008. Minister, in the hearings on annual reports in November 2006 you said, “We,” the government, “have asked the ESA to ensure that its operations are paid for within its budget allocation ... The government’s requirement is simply that the ESA works within its budget allocation.”
Minister, I remind you that in answer to a question on notice you have advised that you are paying $3.3 million in rent per annum for four or more properties at Fairbairn which clearly are 75 per cent unoccupied. Minister, what additional costs will be incurred because of the delay—already 12 months and now by your reckoning likely to be two years—in the relocation of ESA functions and staff to Fairbairn? How will these additional costs be funded?
MR CORBELL: I thank Mr Pratt for the question. To the best of my knowledge, and I will undertake to confirm this, no additional cost is incurred as a result of this. The costs are set and are built into the budget. As the commissioner indicated yesterday at
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .