Page 1935 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 25 June 2008
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wants to come here and spend more than $2 billion to diversify the economy, naturally the government is going to want to pay close attention to the project and make sure that it stays here. And it is staying, despite Mr Seselja’s best efforts to wreck it and talk it down. Not only is it staying; the power station is growing in size in another location, contrary to the misleading statement in the dissenting report of the Select Committee on Estimates that the project has been cut in half. Somebody misled the estimates committee. Who was it, Mr Speaker? Put your hand up. Come on, put your hand up. It was you, Mr Seselja.
We are interested in building a future. We have just produced a budget for the future and this should have been debated and passed last week. But Mr Seselja is not interested in the future; he is only interested in now: “Gimme the top job now!” In your dreams—dream on, sunshine.
This impressive project is also for the future. It will produce jobs for the future, jobs for the kids of the Tuggeranong valley—jobs for Mr Seselja’s kids when they grow up, because he had the foresight to move to Macarthur, knowing full well that the power station and data centre was to be built nearby. His kids will be able to walk to work when they get jobs there. Mr Seselja had no qualms about moving to a house close to the site—no qualms about taking his wife and his kids to live there—knowing about the project. Why is that? Did he truly have no concerns or is he so arrogant that he thinks he has the power to wreck a $2 billion project or at least force it to move away from his new home? This motion shows his true motive. He approves the project; he said so, and I will quote him:
It is really important that we diversify the kind of job opportunities we have in Canberra. And what this provides, potentially, is the opportunity for hundreds of jobs that aren’t tied to the Commonwealth public service.
What he does not approve of is that no-one in the community knows who he is. He badly needs some brand recognition amongst the voters and he thinks a no-confidence motion is the best way to gain the community’s attention. He does not realise that the community can recognise a political stunt when they see one and turn off the person who pulls it.
He also hopefully accuses the Chief Minister of selectively releasing material. Well, he or his colleagues were the ones that framed the request under the Freedom of Information Act for access to the documents. The decision to release the documents was made in accordance with that act by a public servant. The Chief Minister has no role to play in that process, so how did he “selectively release material”?
The only time a minister would be involved in an FOI request occurs when the request is made to the minister for documents in his direct possession. I understand Mr Barr has such a request on foot. Otherwise, the minister has no role to play. I would hope that the minister’s department would inform the minister about what has been released, but the minister cannot make the decision about what is released. Mr Seselja has only himself and his party to blame if he does not know how to frame an FOI request to get all the documents he was seeking.
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