Page 1912 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 25 June 2008
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As pointed out even by the Canberra Times on 17 June 2008, the government had an exceptional opportunity and they dropped the ball, costing the territory $1 billion—and we are still counting. How stupid is the Chief Minister? How many sets of eyes were needed to pass over documents relating to the proposed site before someone—anyone—identified the bleeding obvious?
In his stubbornness and arrogance, the Chief Minister still refuses to request an EIS and has only now allowed his health minister to request that an independent health survey be conducted. But nothing short of a fully independent and audited EIS would be acceptable regarding the projects as they now stand.
But we know, don’t we, what the Chief Minister thinks of the concerns of our local communities. Short of sending in the revolutionaries to plunder and pillage Tuggeranong for the greater good, the Chief Minister’s language has done nothing to mitigate or address the genuine concerns held by them about the impact of the power station on their quality of life.
“No, no,” says Chairman Stanhope, “That is a commercial decision of the proponents; that is not a decision for the government. That is not the government’s decision.” That was the Chief Minister’s answer to me when I pressed him during estimates hearings about the integrity of the studies submitted by the proponent. The Chief Minister has effectively relinquished all control over serving the territory on fundamental strategic issues.
This is the Chief Minister who claims that it is “Alice in wonderland” to allow the public a say in zoning matters. This is particularly significant as it has emerged that, despite his repeated and misleading public statements that the project would be located in Hume, the Chief Minister had by design given the proponents only the Hobson’s choice of Tuggeranong block 1671 so he could preserve areas of Hume for sale at a later date for greater profit. It is profit before people.
We have been able to establish, through FOI requests, that this was the Chief Minister’s motive. The Chief Minister even confirms it, in his statement to the recalled estimates hearing on 16 June, when he claimed that “everybody won” through his opportunistic and callous exercise in cash grabbing. If the Chief Minister has done no wrong, why has he suppressed 3,030 documents from public scrutiny? If he has done no wrong, why did he mislead the Assembly about his role in the site identification process?
Why did the TCC have to host a hastily convened special meeting on behalf of the proponents rather than ActewAGL doing the responsible thing and hosting a series of sessions prior to submitting its application or at the very least throughout the public comment period? Statements put out by ActewAGL also consistently misled the public about the proposed location, referring to the site as being in Hume even in April this year, well and truly after it had commenced planning approval for the site in Tuggeranong.
Why did the Chief Minister, who chose the site himself in August 2007, not ensure that there was adequate consultation about the proposal prior to April 2008? Did he
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