Page 367 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 December 2008
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the interests of the community, because they had to be at arm’s length. The Auditor-General says they were not at arm’s length.
Mrs Dunne: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Mr Corbell said that Mr Seselja was deliberately misconstruing comments, which is a reflection on Mr Seselja, claiming that he is acting dishonourably or untruthfully, and it should be withdrawn.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, I invite you to withdraw any imputation.
Mr Corbell: I withdraw.
MR SESELJA: He ridiculed me for daring to suggest that ministers and governments should actually make judgements in these cases in the interests of the community, and of course this was when he was claiming they were at arm’s length. He was claiming they were at arm’s length. This is rejected by the Auditor-General. It is specifically and comprehensively rejected by the Auditor-General. They got involved and they got it wrong. That is the key thing here: they got involved, they were not at arm’s length, but their involvement put it in the wrong place, allowed it go to in the wrong place, took the process far down the track in the wrong place and led us to this situation today. The Auditor-General continues:
Government agencies … provided assistance to the consortium by identifying one site and agreeing to a Deed of Option … Audit considered that the fee charged by the Government was very low, and did not find the reasons provided persuasive.
The Auditor-General goes on to say there was a lack of community consultation and says:
Audit considers the limited legal requirement for consultation inadequate for significant projects such as the Canberra Technology City proposal … the Chief Minister’s Department did not engage with the community on the site selection decision … ActewAGL did not have a formal policy on community consultation … Key stakeholders outside the government were not consulted about the Hume Industrial Planning Study …
Several stakeholders considered the overall community consultation process inadequate in its timing, content and duration and raised issues with the completeness and reliability of information provided. The Auditor-General went on to say, as mentioned before, the media releases were not accurate. That is a fairly comprehensive critique of this process from the Auditor-General. It is a critique that we have been making for many months. It is a critique that Greens members, or the Greens member in the previous Assembly, made during 2008, and it is a critique that many in the community have been making when they have appealed to us.
So many in the community have asked the basic question: in a place as well-planned as Canberra, where we have industrial zones, where we separate those industrial zones from residential areas, why would this proposal go ahead on this site? It is the simple commonsense question put to me by so many residents of Tuggeranong: why would it go ahead on this site? The government do not have an answer. The only answer is they were not listening to the community. They were arrogant. They disregarded the concerns of the community. They took the commercial needs of the proponent and the commercial realities of a government into consideration whilst ignoring the potential
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