Page 2607 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 2 July 2008
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only seven were partly censored. That is interesting. The LDA has not gone out of its way to release pages to the media. Then again, no papers from the LDA were tabled in the Assembly. So, from the LDA, 1,515 pages were not released, representing 78 per cent. The Chief Minister’s contribution to honesty, openness and accountability applies only about 20 per cent of the time.
Now we get to ACTPLA. ACTPLA does not actually list the number of folios; it actually lists documents, of which there were 183. Some 156 of the documents, of which only 17 were partly censored, were released. None have been released to the media and none were tabled in the parliament or at the estimates hearings. We cannot tell you the numbers of pages because we have not finished counting them yet, but the proportion of pages suppressed was only 15.
What is it that makes it so hard for the Chief Minister to release these documents when, quite clearly, the Minister for Planning can release his? What is the total? The total—excluding ACTPLA documents because we do not know the number of pages—comes to 3,876. Some 828 were released, of which 182 were censored. Five pages have gone to the media. However, 3,048 pages, or 79 per cent, were not released. So much for being more honest, more open and more accountable.
We can certainly find one document which contradicts 100 per cent what the Deputy Chief Minister said and belies what she told the Canberra Times, because there it is in black and white in a brief to the Chief Minister from his department officials: “When you make the decision on which block will be offered.” The government was involved, contrary to what the Deputy Chief Minister said. The government did have actions undergoing in this debate, even though the Deputy Chief Minister denied it. The government was an integral part of the process that saw a $2 billion development in the ACT shunted from one block to another.
It is interesting that on the weekend we found out that the block that the project could not have because it had Aboriginal artefacts on it was up for tender. It was up for sale. It can be flogged now. It was not available to a $2 billion project for the ACT, but it is now mysteriously available for a subdivision. Why is that, Madam Assistant Speaker? I think Mr Mitchell put it so eloquently in the estimates when he said, “Well, of course, there are substantial opportunity costs when you release something for subdivision rather than for a large-scale development.” What are those substantial opportunity costs? You make more money. You make bigger profits before you consider the people that are affected by this and have to live with this development for the rest of their time in their suburb.
The government is very good at slurring the Macarthur people as being NIMBYs. But I have had correspondence from as far afield as Macgregor. I know of reports from Wanniassa and Kambah, from Isaacs and Curtin, from Farrer and Chisholm and people all across the territory who are worried by this, unlike the government.
The government has withheld documents from the opposition, and they have withheld them for one reason. They put the lie to what the Deputy Chief Minister has said. If there was nothing in these documents, then I am quite sure they would be delighted to release them to the public, to shame and embarrass the opposition and to prove that we were wrong. But they cannot and they will not. They cannot release them because
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