Page 3190 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 August 2008
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MR SPEAKER: That is a debating point, Mrs Dunne. It is not a point of order.
MR GENTLEMAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. That is apart from the presentation of that report this morning. You will remember the last time I gave a report here it was the one on the Namadgi draft plan of management. I did comment, of course, when I delivered that report that Mrs Dunne had missed two out of the last four meetings that dealt with that inquiry.
Since then she has missed only yesterday’s meeting and, of course, the trip that we did to Sydney to meet up with environment committees from all over Australia. She managed to get there early for World Youth Day, but could not quite come to the last day of the committee symposium there.
Of course, it is always very interesting when we go to start these meetings. For every single meeting since Mrs Dunne has joined this committee she has been late. Mr Speaker, we have had to wait in the committee room. It is quite embarrassing sometimes especially when it is a public hearing and you have got ministers and officials present. We have had to ask our secretary to ring her office for every single meeting since she has been on the committee.
It was hardly surprising to us yesterday when we called a meeting at 11 o’clock that Mrs Dunne did not arrive. I personally took it on myself, Mr Speaker, to ring her office and ask if she was coming down. I spoke to one of her advisers who said no, that she was not going to come down.
Of course, we had agreed to this meeting on a prior occasion. We had agreed last Friday to finalise the report at a meeting on Monday. In the minutes of Friday’s meeting it is stated:
The committee considered the draft report. A final version is to be circulated with amendments for reconsideration at a short meeting Monday, 18 August.
We all agreed to that last Friday. Mrs Dunne had her copy of the chair’s draft report. It was dropped into her office Friday morning. The report apparently was misplaced by her office; so the secretary had to get another report. But when she came to the meeting I think it was fairly well run. In fact, contrary to what Mrs Dunne said, we went through the report page by page and agreed on that report, apart from some consideration with grammar.
Of course, this was brought up by Mrs Dunne at the Friday meeting. We noted that in the minutes of the Monday meeting. Mrs Dunne advised the secretary she had grammatical corrections to the report, including changing references to “Molonglo Valley” to “Molonglo and north Weston”. They were relevant and the secretary incorporated grammatical changes.
I think it is very hypocritical, Mr Speaker, for Mrs Dunne to stand here and talk about process today when I do not think she is very interested at all in the planning and environment committee process. However, it has been a detailed report; it has been an extensive inquiry. I recommend that the Assembly note the report.
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