Page 1874 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 25 June 2008
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answer whether the government ruled out block 7 of 21 at any point. None of the four contradictory cover stories invented by Mr Stanhope are supported by the documents. I have already mentioned ACTPLA’s email in March last year, the meeting with ActewAGL on 2 May 2007 and the letter from Scott Carr of 8 July.
Mr Dawes, in the Chief Minister’s Department, had instructed officials to resist requests for 7 of 21. Senior officials in the LDA note this fact in a memo dated 4 July 2007 in which they record:
Whereas ACTEW will probably prefer their default option of returning to Block 7 Section 21 Hume the implications of this for industrial land supply which Mr Dawes emphasised was a priority for Government must be taken into account in reaching a final decision.
I seek leave to table that document.
Leave granted.
MR SESELJA: I table the following paper:
Proposed gas fired power station and data centre—Copy of Email from Gordon Lowe to Ray Stone, Project Director, Land Development Agency, dated Wednesday, 4 July 2007 (2).
Mr Stanhope is contradicted absolutely and at every turn by the documentary record. He has plainly misled the estimates committee on a number of statements of fact and consequently he has misled the Assembly. Mr Stanhope twice misled the Assembly with categorical statements that denied the government had ever considered the financial return from different site locations. He said:
… suggestions that either I or the government took into account the respective valuations or return to government in relation to the selection of one particular site over another are spurious and false.
He also said:
So what we have is no statement from officials saying the land was too valuable.
This is utterly contradicted by a number of documents. In June 2007, the Policy Division of the Chief Minister’s Department told ACTPLA that it must consider the impact of site selection on the value of available land supply. The document states:
The gas-fired power station, as located in Options 1 & 3 would occupy land with a potential value of $50 to $60 million and take up half the land available for immediate release.
Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table that document.
Leave granted.
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