Page 1096 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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resolve—it had Mr Smyth’s fingerprints all over it—was another doozy of Mr Smyth’s.
Having said that, Koomarri entered into that flawed arrangement with the previous government in good faith. Koomarri at least acted in good faith. They entered into the arrangement in good faith, they managed the caravan park for a number of years, and I believe it is reasonable and appropriate for Koomarri to have retained some of the proceeds of that sale. In fact, I believe their decision to repay a significant portion of those funds to the government, which was not required at law, was a very generous gesture by Koomarri and I am quite satisfied with it.
DR FOSKEY: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. What personal costs will residents of the park incur if the land swap deal with Dytin does not proceed or reach an effective conclusion, or will the territory need to carry that cost as well?
MR STANHOPE: I acknowledge, as I believe anybody has to acknowledge, that until the deal is finalised there is capacity for the deal not to proceed. That is the nature of any deal. It has not been finalised. There is always the capacity for any deal that has still to be finalised, is still in negotiation, to not conclude. My belief and hope is that it will be satisfactory, that the land swap will proceed, that the issues that have been raised, particularly the planning concerns raised by the NCA, are resolvable and that the land swap will proceed as quickly as we can possibly achieve it. That is the basis on which we are currently operating.
I, of course, do have in the back of my mind, as always, that we might not achieve that result. I fully expect that we will, but we might not, and, if we do not, that of course would mean that Mr Zivco would remain owner and landlord. He previously has given some indication of what his resultant response would be, and the government would then have no option but to reconsider how to best deal with the issue that we faced and with which we had been presented.
I have previously indicated that one of the options that we would consider is compulsory acquisition. It is idle of me to speculate on who would pick up the costs to the residents in the event that the land swap fails, because the government would then have to go back to taws, back to square one, and reconsider its own response and reconsider the options potentially available to it. Of course, one of those options always has been and will be the capacity to compulsorily acquire the site, and we would, of course, then consider that. But that is highly speculative and hypothetical. At this stage we expect the land swap to proceed and to be finalised.
Emergency Services Authority—Mr Peter Dunn
MR PRATT: My question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, your government committed to implementing all the recommendations of the McLeod report, including the establishment of a separate emergency services organisation. Last year you made a budget decision to return the ESA to the Department of Justice and Community Safety, going back on your commitment of August 2003.
On ABC radio last week, Mr Peter Dunn, the former commissioner of the Emergency Services Authority, said that he had no option but to resign from this position because,
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