Page 2012 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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I assume that political pressure does not come from the department. I presume that our public servants are not acting politically. I think the political pressure was coming from the minister’s office. The political pressure was coming to desperately try and get a win before the election on housing affordability, to desperately try and prove that the land rent scheme was working.
When confronted with the evidence, he decided “Well, you know, I won’t tell the truth.” He could have told the truth in a very simple statement. It would have been a very simple statement that could have been drafted for him: “We have not yet been able to attract a lender. There have been some concerns raised, but we are hopeful. We hope that we can get one,” but he did not. He chose to mislead. He chose to deceive the people six weeks out from an election, to try and pretend that he was getting it done when it came to housing affordability and on the centrepiece of his housing affordability plan—the land rent scheme.
The centrepiece of his housing affordability plan was in danger of falling over, and he knew it. The correspondence shows that he knew it. He must have known it. He went ahead and made the statement anyway. He went ahead and misled the community anyway, not caring, because he figured that if he could just get away with it he could save his political skin. We can only assume that he did it deliberately.
The only alternative, of course, is the deluded response we have from the Chief Minister in the Canberra Times, where he claims that when they were seeing all this correspondence—when he had officials running around chasing a lender, saying, “Come on board. We need someone to come on board; otherwise the whole thing will fall on its head”—he actually believed that they still supported it. And even if they did not lend—because that is what he says—he says, “Look, they’re not lending, but they support it.” It is farcical; it is embarrassing. That statement from a Chief Minister is embarrassing—where he claims that banks and financial institutions bought this scheme: “They haven’t withdrawn their support; they just won’t lend.”
Ordinary Canberrans understand that banks and financial institutions demonstrate their support by lending money. That is how they support a scheme. They lend money with a view to a long-term profit if they believe the conditions are right, if they believe the security is there. They did not see the security here. They were raising those concerns right from the start. The Chief Minister came into this place, went to the media and claimed otherwise—claimed that all things were going well, claimed that it was supported across the board. None of that can be backed up.
I commend the motion. I also again ask for the Chief Minister to come back soon to the Assembly and correct the record of what he said in June of last year on the land rent scheme.
Amendment negatived.
Question put:
That Mr Seselja’s motion be agreed to.
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