Page 2473 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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Leave granted.
MRS DUNNE: I thank members and table the following paper:
Tharwa bridge—Chronology of events
Here we see a member acting diligently to try and look after the best interests of a community which has been extraordinarily badly treated by this government. When they put together the school closure issues, the water pumping issues and the bridge issues, the people in Tharwa do have reason to scratch their heads and wonder why they bothered to have any hope of any assistance from the Stanhope government. Added to that, there is the shabby treatment of the volunteer bush fire brigade, of which Tharwa southern brigade is an important element.
There is a huge amount of discontent. What we have here is Mr Pratt representing those people and taking proactive action to try and get a solution to a problem that the government is not doing anything about. He has got things moving. Then he asks the minister to take up that baton and see if he can get something out of the Department of Defence—make an application to the Department of Defence on behalf of the Tharwa community. We have acrimonious press releases but no action.
Instead of taking action on behalf of the people of Tharwa, here today we have Mr Hargreaves saying, “Well I’m gunna get some advice. I’m gunna do something. I am not quite sure what.”—in some attempt to imply that the opposition has been acting in bad faith. This is an attempt at intimidating Mr Pratt. I do not think that Mr Pratt is the sort of person who is going to be intimidated by Mr Hargreaves “gunna” attitude. It would have been much more useful if Mr Hargreaves had agreed to meet with Mr Pratt, as was suggested on 14 February, and there had been a bipartisan attempt to help the community of Tharwa.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.12—ACT Planning and Land Authority, $32,949,000 (net cost of outputs) and $6,524,000 (capital injection), totalling $39,473,000.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (5.40): Let me just say at the outset that, in terms of opposition responsibility at the moment, I also have the responsibility of shadow minister for planning, due to the fact that my colleague Mr Seselja is away presently on leave due to the birth of his daughter. I would like to put our congratulations on the record. He has three boys and now he has a daughter. I understand they are all very well. I will take up some of the issues that he would have wanted to raise on this occasion. I have explained why he cannot be with us.
As indicated, the government will appropriate $39.473 million for the ACT Planning and Land Authority. We have already discussed the importance of the property sector in the ACT. It is a vital area of the ACT economy and has been a cash cow for the government. The housing affordability problem in the ACT brings home the importance of this vital area of the economy. Housing affordability problems have flow-on effects to ACT residents in terms of their household savings and their general wellbeing.
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