Page 2270 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I responded that I had an expectation that every non-urban property in the possession of the government would be investigated for suitability. So I said, “Please give me advice on whether or not this site would be suitable.” I have never visited it; I have no idea what it looks like; I do not know what capacity it has. I have never been to Kama. I have never seen the homestead. I have no idea whether it would or would not be suitable. To suggest I had made up my mind is absurd. I have never been to Kama. It might just be a rickety old shack. It might be completely unsatisfactory as an indigenous-specific drug rehabilitation facility. We are talking about a health facility. There would be certain requirements. I simply did not know and I wanted to be informed.
So of course it is reasonable in that context—in the context that a request from the Chief Minister for advice on whether a particular facility was suitable as a drug rehabilitation facility—that any action that might have been in place be put on hold. That is what happened. It was put on hold until the government received advice.
As it transpires, Mr Manikis, through his office in indigenous affairs, is preparing a cabinet submission and, yes, the government has received advice from Mr Manikis on Kama. The advice we received was: “Chief Minister, this matter should be subject to detailed agency consideration. We will actually outline for you in the cabinet submissions the pros and cons of proceeding with this particular site.” That is the story. There is no conspiracy. There was no undue interference in the sale process. There was no sale lined up. There was no sale date.
Certainly, certain agents had been approached and invited to tender to be the selling agent. Four agents responded to that with a tender. No decision had been made. They were simply rung and told, “Well, look, at this stage we are not proceeding. The sale is on hold. We will not consider your particular expression of interest in being the selling agent for this land because we are not at this stage going to sell it.” Cabinet will be dealing with that cabinet submission in the next month or two. It might be that it will advise the government that this is a totally inappropriate site, in which case the sale will proceed. But if it does identify it as an inappropriate site, it will be on the basis that it has identified a better site.
This is the process we are now engaged in as a result of the detailed submissions the government received from Nic Manikis. This is signed “Nic Manikis” and essentially says, “Chief Minister, before we are in a position to provide you with any advice on whether or not Kama is an appropriate site, we need to do a detailed assessment. We will do this through the cabinet submission process. We will, Chief Minister, invite every department or agency with an interest in this particular issue to give us their perspective on whether or not Kama would be an appropriate site.” The government is awaiting that advice. The government has no advice on whether Kama is an appropriate or otherwise site. In fact, the government has no advice on any site. It is all being done in the context of the cabinet submission which is currently being developed by all of our agencies.
I will take the opportunity to respond to a couple of other issues that have been raised. One issue in particular that I wish to address is the extent to which the ACT economy
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .