Page 569 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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The amendment is self-explanatory. It will be a test of this government as to whether they accept the amendment. If the minister does speak on the issue, I would like him to use that opportunity to rule out the sale of land at Flynn.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (5.11): The government will not be supporting this amendment, as Mrs Dunne would have guessed.
Mrs Dunne: I thought so. You could knock me down with a feather!
MR HARGREAVES: No, no. Mr Speaker, we have all the confidence that the process is an open one and a transparent one. There will be significant amounts of community consultation, as I indicated earlier.
Mr Speaker, you might recall that earlier I said that we would consult with the community site by site—consult with the people who are affected by the issue and the communities themselves. Let me take Flynn as an example. There seems to be some confusion around Flynn. It is an interesting thing. I think Dr Foskey was making a point—and it is probably a good one—about how the community at large knows that we are having conversations with a specific community. Clearly, I cannot go public when I have had conversations with certain parts of the community; that would breach their confidentiality. I only do so today with respect to the John Flynn association because this debate has been brought forward into the chamber.
I have had conversations with quite a number of community groups—personally, through letters, through email and on the telephone. I am not going to outline every group that I have had conversations with. Predominantly we have said, “Go and see the Property Group. The Property Group have the criteria. If you work up a proposal and it is only half baked, the Property Group will assist in the process of putting that thinking into shape so that it actually does meet the criteria and does change.”
Let me turn to the Flynn group. I know that Mrs Dunne is particularly interested in the Flynn group. Some of the proposals that have been put forward will not fly. They just will not fly. But let me talk about what has come out of the discussion on the options that I developed with a couple of gentlemen who came to see me representing the two organisations.
It was quite clear that a segment of that community was keen to have activities relating to that community go on in that series of buildings. They were not particularly interested in some other things. For example, they were not interested in us saying, “Yes, okay, ACTCOSS can go and live out there.” They were interested in services or activities which would have a benefit to their community—and possibly to a few surrounding communities or to that part of Belconnen. I think that is admirable. Some of them were talking about childcare activities. That was discussed. I said to them, “You need to have those options developed a little bit more clearly.” I put them in touch with the Property Group, and that is exactly what went on.
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