Page 2470 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Hanson: It is $45 million—49. It goes up every week, doesn’t it?
Ms Gallagher: I appeared for that, Jeremy. Get it? Minister for Health—the project sits under me.
MR BARR: How many times did Mr Smyth appear before committees to justify each one of his call ins? How many times did Mr Smyth appear?
Ms Gallagher: The appropriation bill, an application of the planning laws? No. Indeed, I said that to you that morning.
MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Mr Barr has the floor.
MR BARR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I repeat: if we want to put in place a process that requires the minister of the day to appear before a committee before making any decisions on call ins, let us put that in the legislation. Frankly, that would make my life easier as planning minister, because then I could deflect all responsibility for decision making back to the Assembly. I could deflect every single request that I get for a call in—from the development lobby, from opposition members, from the Greens, from everyone—back to an amorphous committee who could maybe take three or four months to make a decision and make a recommendation.
That is one way we could deal with this. But in the Planning and Development Act we have put in place this mechanism to deal with just these sorts of issues—substantive matters where there is substantive public benefit. It is not dual occupancies like Mr Smyth called in. It is not a range of minor development applications. This is a $45 million rebuild of car parking at the public hospital that will then lead to a massive investment in public health. This is the starting point. I am sure that in an alternative scenario where someone had appealed, where this piece of capital works was held up for six months—
Ms Gallagher: Eighty jobs.
MR BARR: With 80 jobs being delayed—we would have had the opposition come into this place and accuse us of not doing enough to deliver on our capital works agenda. That would be the alternative argument, Mr Speaker. That is where the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party on this matter comes to the fore. Seriously, take a position on this issue of substance. But no; little Zdenko is running away from the issue of substance and is making this series of impossible hurdles. There is nothing I could have said that would satisfy you, Mr Seselja.
Mr Seselja: Better than a letter to the editor.
MR BARR: There is nothing. The letter to the editor is not the reason for the call in; the letter from the health minister is the reason for the call in.
The risk elimination is that now no-one can appeal and delay this development. That is the result of a call in. It is in the legislation. It is a power that this Assembly has
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .