Page 2469 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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But no. The Liberal Party are not prepared to even give me that opportunity. No. They are all about censoring me today. This is all about politics; it has absolutely nothing to do with the process.
Mr Seselja: I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Then I heard that you had based it on a letter to the editor.
MR BARR: Zdenko Seselja, there is nothing I could say. There is nothing I could say at the moment, or could have said, in relation to this that would have appeased you. There is nothing, Zdenko, that I could have said. There is nothing. The request for a call in came from the Minister for Health. You have got that letter. You have all read it. Do I need to quote it back to you? Do I need to read from it to remind you of what was in the letter? In the letter, drawing my attention particularly to—
Mr Smyth: There is an attachment mentioned in the letter that we have never seen.
Ms Gallagher: They are all publicly available anyway. I am sure you have done your own research. I will check up.
MR BARR: Drawing my attention particularly to the flaws within the Planning and Development Act around the use of the call-in power, particularly in relation to the substantial public benefit—that is the rationale for the call in. My statements in relation to politically motivated and frivolous objections were around risk elimination. That is a judgement I have got to make as Minister for Planning. Since I have been planning minister, I have had more than 40 requests to use the call-in powers—for and against applications—by members of the opposition, by the Greens, by developers, by members of the community.
Mr Hanson: What made this one special, Andrew?
MR BARR: What made this one special? The significant public benefit associated with this development. That is the rationale for the call in. The risk elimination in this call in is that now that I have called it in there is no way that frivolous or politically motivated objections can stall the development. That is the important outcome; that is the issue of substance in this debate.
Again I remind those opposite that if they are really, genuinely concerned about investment in public health—it would appear that behind all of this is their fundamental philosophical objection to investment in public health. That is what this is really about. That is what all of this political hyperbole, all of these stunts and all of these “it is desperately urgent but it must wait until after question time and after the media have gone” statements are all about. This is nothing more than base politics. This is almost a rite of passage in minority government: how many censures can you move against ministers? That is all this is about.
I stand by the letter I wrote back to Mr Seselja—my rationale for not appearing midway through a process that is outlined and dictated by the act and that has its own accountability mechanisms. What I want to know is how many times Mr Smyth, the call-in king—
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